


The Study Group

by Kittyxuchiha11



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Genre: Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, Elyza is flirty and a little sad, F/F, Multi, Other, they're all idiots but good idiots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:49:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 35,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22119685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kittyxuchiha11/pseuds/Kittyxuchiha11
Summary: Elyza wanted to be a good person. She thought that maybe a change in careers would help that. I mean, a con artist isn't exactly the best profession to be when you're trying to be good. By some stroke of luck (or misfortune, depends how you look at it) she finds herself traveling with 4 students of the famous Caltraix academy. The worst part, she's been assigned to protect these idiots from harms way. Great, just what she wanted.A novel based on the events of my groups Dungeons and Dragons campaign.
Kudos: 1





	1. The Caltriax Academy

The Arcturus company likes to think of itself as one of the highest and most well-versed mercenary companies there is to hire in these lands. It’s no wonder they've been hired to guard the wondrous Caltriax academy, home to many young students studying and learning how to perfect their magic ways.

The students take their classes in the day, living in the Equitus Spire the rest of the time. The mercenary guards have their own living quarters in the Thorn Spire, although they work in shifts to guard the students day and night. There are a few classes held in the evening, extra curricular ones which both students and guards are able to attend since many of the guards have magical abilities of their own.

Any relations between guards and students aren’t forbidden per say, but definitely frowned upon. Mercenary captain Varin keeps his troops in line, but some slip through the cracks of course. So it isn’t a surprise to find a purple tiefling guard making her way into the dorms, making it look like she’s just on her way to do her assigned patrol route, before quickly sneaking her way towards the stairs. 

When she turns the corner, she doesn’t expect to find a cute black-haired human girl with large glasses, who quite literally bumps into her. “Oh, Elyza. Hi”

Elyza just gives her a once over, her expression obviously saying much more than words ever could because Chell, the girl in question, looks sheepish before smiling shyly. “I’m just going to the library. Couldn't sleep so decided to do some late night reading...I won’t tell if you won’t.”

Elyza gives her a grin, laughing softly to herself as she steps aside and lets Chell past. “Go on then. Just be back before I can ‘catch’ you.” 

Chell nods excitedly, hurrying down the hall and out of sight before Elyza can say another word. She shakes her head slightly, a small smile still on her face as she proceeds. Chell is cute, in like a nerdy bookworm way. Not really Elyza’s type, but they get along well enough when they bump into each other while Elyza is patrolling. It definitely isn’t the first time they’ve met like this.

Elyza makes her way up to the next level, smirking to herself confidently. It's almost too easy to sneak past the Tabaxi stationed to patrol the fourth floor. She watches him pass from where she’s hidden around a corner, easily managing to sneak past the path he’s just crossed to get where she needs to go.

Just as before, Elyza manages to sneak past the dwarven man on the fifth floor as well, having to wait for him to move out of sight before very quietly giving her signature knock on the door she’s looking for. As if on cue, the door opens quickly, Elyza basically being dragged inside the room. Once inside she blinks a few times, her eyes adjusting to the light interior compared to the pitch black of the corridors. 

A human girl stands before her, her long brown hair spilling over her shoulders. Her blue eyes looking at Elyza with a look of wonder and awe. “You’re here. You actually came” she says softly, a small flush rising to her cheeks as she realises how silly that sounds.

Elyza just smiles at her, relaxing slightly as she closes the gap between them. “Of course I am. You think I'd miss our date? Especially after that adorable letter you left, Miya?”

Miya looks away, definitely flustered if her pink cheeks are anything to go by. “I didn’t think I- you flirt with a lot of girls, I didn’t think I was special enough…”

Elyza seems to falter for a moment, the flirty comment on her tongue dying as she looks at Miya. She is known for flirting, it's what she does best. Being able to twist anyone she likes around her finger to get what she wants. It’s how she made it so long in Pyke, her charm and wit perfected so no one could see through her. She left that life behind, coming here trying to kid herself that she could change, be better than she was. Hoping she could change so she doesn’t turn out like him.

Miya seems to sense her moment of inner turmoil and looks up at her with her big beautiful blue eyes. So clear and pure, no one’s ever hurt her before. Elyza knows its wrong, but she keeps going, leading her on like this means something. She smiles, knowing it doesn’t reach her eyes as she cups Miya’s face and rubs a thumb across her cheek bone.

“You’re beautiful Miya, I’m lucky to have you.”

They spend the night together, hours later lying in a tangle of blankets and furs. Elyza normally isn’t one to stay, but the way Miya is nuzzled into her neck and clinging to her keeps her put. She runs her fingers through the younger girl’s long brown hair, finding it oddly calming. Her mind is far away, thinking about anything and everything, when the thought comes to her that her shift will be over soon, and she’ll have to head back to the Thorn Spire to rest. Just as she’s about to speak, she hears Miya’s slightly muffled voice.

“Elyza?” 

Elyza hums in reply, opening her eyes to see Miya has now moved her head and is looking at her, trying to make eye contact the best she can from their current position.

“Will I see you again?”

She doesn’t reply, not immediately. She just looks, searching Miya’s eyes trying to gauge how sincere she is. 

“Of course you will, i’ll be around”

“No, I mean like this...will you come see me again?”

Elyza knows its wrong to string her along like this when Miya obviously really likes her, and Elyza is just using her as a distraction, something she can easily get. But she nods and smiles, moving to kiss Miya, hoping she can crush the tiny feeling of guilt in her stomach with something else. 

About an hour later Elyza leaves, just as the morning sun is coming up and the other night guards are heading to bed as she should be. It isn’t hard to sneak out and pretend she’s been at her post all night.

As she arrives back at her living quarters, she finds the tabaxi man waiting for her, arms crossed as if he’s just caught her sneaking back in.

“Yes Vale?” she asks after a moment of them both just looking at each other. His expression darkens slightly as he takes a step towards her. She takes a step back instinctively, falling into line like she was always taught. She mentally kicks herself for it, giving Vale a hard stare as she steps back up to him.

“I know what you were up to last night”

Elyza simply scoffs at him, rolling her eyes. “What are you talking about”

He seems to squint at her slightly before leaning in just the slightest bit “I heard you. I know you weren’t at your post”

“I was. I was there all night. You must be losing it finally, Vale.”

He gives her one last hard look over before backing off. “Don’t make a habit of it. We all need to pull our weight around here” 

Elyza watches as he leaves, breathing a sigh of relief as she hears his footsteps fade. She knows he’s always like that, always weird and creepy. She shrugs it off, starting to take off her armour and ready herself for bed.

Suddenly, there’s a sharp knock at the door. “Elyza! Get the hell out here right now!”

She knows immediately who it is and scrambles to get the door open. Sure enough, Captain Varin is standing there, a face full of thunder as he all but glares at her. “You! With me, right now!”

Varin doesn’t say a word to her, just marches her out of the Thorn spire and back towards the Equitus. She knows better than to ask questions, knows it will not end well for her. So she stays quiet, and before she knows it, she’s being lead towards the common room of the dorms. He gives her another harsh look before he opens the door and leads her inside.

Elyza doesn’t know what to expect when she walks in, but is sure isn’t what she’s met with. There stands Trizzi Vastres, an adorable red tiefling with short curly white hair. Elyza hasn’t exactly gotten to know Trizzi, but she’s seen her around a few times. She may have a slight crush on her, but she’d never act on it. She isn’t that stupid.

On the other side of the room standing near Trizzi is a young human man with curly black hair. A...a mouse who stands about 3 feet tall, wearing a white shirt and black shorts. Elyza vaguely remembers seeing him around the academy, but thought it must have been some sort of illusion. Apparently not. Next to them is a weird blue lizard looking thing in a long blue dress. And at the end of the group, very much seperate from the others is what Elyza can only describe as a weird sunburnt looking elf with long black hair wearing a suit. 

Everyone seems to look at Elyza as she enters, most of them looking with intrigue and confusion. She still doesn’t say anything. Just stands there, hands behind her back as she looks to Varin for further instruction. He’s moved to stand beside Trizzi now as he looks over the group, still looking incredibly pissed off.

“Right, listen up. A student has been found dead, we suspect a murderer is among us. Chell, a young human girl. Dark hair, big glasses. Yeah, we found her in this floors library with a knife in her throat.”

“What?” the curly haired man asks sounding incredibly shocked, his eyes immediately darting to the mouse beside him as they share an almost horrified look.

“Here.” Varin holds out a bloodied steel dagger, the pattern on the base recognisable instantly as a standard issue for the military guard. 

“Right now we have no idea who’s done this. The Archmagi are coming down hard on this, they need someone to blame for an innocent girl’s murder. Unless we know who did it, the heads will expel all of you to be safe.”

“But we didn’t do anything wrong!” the mouse pipes up, his voice sounding somehow exactly how Elyza imagined it would.

“And so you say. But you all live on the same floor as her, you all know her” He says pointedly looking towards the four students in the room.

For a moment Elyza thinks she might be about to get away with abandoning her post as Varin’s anger seems to be mainly directed towards the students. That is until he turns towards her, eyes like daggers piercing into her.

“And she was killed on your watch! You’re just as guilty as far as we’re concerned.”

Elyza grimices slightly at the loudness of his voice, opening her mouth to try defend herself but then shutting it immediately as she sees the look he’s giving her. He seems to collect himself and sigh softly. The frown seeming to be permanent on his face as he looks up to address them all once again.

“As of right now, you’re all suspects. I suggest you quickly find out who the killer is or you’re all fucked.You have 24 hours.”

And with that he leaves the room, leaving pretty much everyone in shock if their faces are anything to go by. Trizzi is the first to move, her nervous energy even more apparent today as she quickly tries to give them all more information.

“Erm, we have compiled a list of people who last saw Chell, the poor girl: Jorin the guard who watches the stairway, Kervos was last seen with her in the library yesterday, and Vale, the Tabaxi from the Gahren company who patrols at night. I wish you all luck, but I must go now, I've got a lot of paperwork to do unfortunately.”

Soon enough it’s just the five of them left in a room alone together. The shock of the murder of one of their friends seeming to hit most of the students hard. And Elyza, well she’s never felt so guilty in her entire life. Chell was alive and well when she’d seen her no more than eight hours before. What the hell could of happened?

The tall woman seems to clear her throat, grabbing everyone’s attention before she speaks, her voice almost like silk with an accent Elyza recognises immediately. “So, it seems we have a murder to solve. I don’t know about you lot, but I don’t exactly want to be expelled over this.”

“How can you be so calm about this Cornelia? Chell was our friend, and now she’s dead.” the black haired man says with a tight frown, his expression seeming to be mirrored by the mouse somehow. 

Cornelia seems slightly taken aback by this, but soon collects herself and just looks back at him. “She may have been your friend, but not mine. I don’t even know who you people are.”

“Cariston, Cheese, and Naliah.” The mouse- Cheese says as he points out who’s who. “We’ve all been living together for the last year at least, how can you not know?”

“I stay in my room, go to classes. I have no interest in making friends.”

“I’ve only seen Chell a few times in passing, never really talked to her.” Naliah, the blue lizard girl says quietly, seeming like she doesn’t exactly want to be involved in this conversation either. 

Cheese seems to ignore her comment altogether as he seems way too shocked at Cornelia. “We had a party a few months ago and made cupcakes and everything for you.”

“Oh. Is that what those were for?”

“They were friendship cupcakes Cornelia! how did you not know?”

Elyza just watches them for a moment almost in amazement at how the hell these idiots are supposed to be powerful enough to even still be at this school. Elyza has seen her fair share of stupid people in her time, but these guys really take the cake, arguing over such trivial shit.

“If you’re quite done.” she says, trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice. “We only have a day to solve this, don’t you think we better get a move on?”

“She’s right” Naliah says after a short tense silence. “We better go over what we know” Elyza makes her way across the room to gather with the group, noticing the pout on Cornelia’s face since she didn’t get to win her argument.

“Elyza, by the way” she says, giving Cornelia her signature wink that normally will make even the sternest of girls swoon. Cornelia instead just rolls her eyes, deciding helping the group will be miles better than being flirted with by the academy’s flirtiest tielfing. Instead of deferring her, it brings a smirk to Elyza’s lips. Looks like she has a challenge ahead of her if she really wants to pursue it.

They discuss their options, what they know, trying to figure out who the hell would want to hurt poor Chell. Chell who was quiet and kind, always helpful and cheerful. Figuring out the motive is the hardest part. Was it a coincidence? Or did Chell get herself in some kind of trouble. They manage to narrow it down to a few options, those being: Visit the library, interview people who last saw her, and just ask around to see if anyone saw anything.

“Trizzi said there was a guard that found her. Jorin, right? Maybe he can tell us something?” Cariston asks them, obviously thinking about more than just that by the look on his face.

“Yeah, it’s somewhere to start at least.” Naliah replies, already looking towards the exit. “I think I heard Trizzi mention he was in the infirmary.y”

Without much more discussion, the group move from the dorms, heading downstairs to the infirmary. It’s a short walk there, one spent in silence. There are several other students roaming around, everyone seeming on edge and the rumours already spreading by the stares they’re all getting. 

There are several whispers and conversations not being had as quietly as they should be, but Elyza doesn't pick up anything too important. Just some gossip about Jorin being blood soaked and crying as he reported the crime. Whispers of secret lovers and other crazy intentions behind the murder. She knows to ignore gossip mostly. Some of it can be good fun when it's all to do with affairs and such, but not when it surrounds something like this.

They arrive at the infirmary without issue, Cariston seeming to lead the group into the room, where sure enough Jorin is lying in a nearby cot, propped up by some pillows behind him. He notices them arrive but doesn’t give them an indication he’s happy to see them which is strange because from what people know of him he’s normally a fairly happy guy. Although, the fact he found a student dead less than an hour ago might have something to do with that.

“Hi Jorin. We’d like to ask some questions” Cariston leads with, giving the rest of the group a quick glance as if to ask them to step in and help. Cheese seems to happily take the invitation and starts asking questions.

“You were the one who found Chell, what were you doing in the library?” Cheese asks as he tries to stand up as tall as possible to have a look at the man obviously still in shock.

“I, uh. I always do a quick check of the library before the start of my watch. I went in there as usual, but that’s when I saw the blood”

“I heard you were covered in blood when you reported her death, is that true?” Cornelia says with a pointed tone, drawing a few looks from the others. Elyza is impressed more than anything that she picked up on the gossip she’d also head. So far Cornelia hasn’t exactly come across as the most perceptive person.

“I, uh- of course I was. I saw her lying there and tried to see if she was okay, hold her and shake her awake. I-I thought maybe she’d fallen and hit her head. That’s w-when I saw the dagger” He breathes shakily, his eyes filling with tears at the memory “I-I’m sorry. Who could have done something so terrible to her? She was liked by everyone. I just can’t-” he cuts himself off with a sob, his head in his hands as he cries.

Elyza has seen a lot of people lie. She lived around people who lied for a profession for many years. She wants to say this guy is just a really good actor and accuse him and try get this solved now. Everything points to him, whoever has done this has planned it out very well. It is incredibly hard to deny murder when your hands are soaked in blood. But she knows Jorin didn’t do it, she can just tell. She could just accuse him, but it wouldn’t be right, she owes it to Chell at least to find her murderer. 

“Come on, lets leave him be.” She says, turning to walk out the room. The rest of them, especially Cheese, seem to give her a strange look but follow her. Once outside the room she leans against the wall, looking over the rest of the group. “He’s telling the truth, he didn’t kill her. We should probably go to the library to see if we can find anything.”

“How do you know? He looked guilty to me.” Cornelia says with a shrug, not seeming overly bothered if he is guilty or not. 

“I think she’s right. He seemed too upset for it to be him. Would he really be in shock if he’d done it?” Cariston pipes up, looking over to Cheese and Naliah for back up. Cheese simply nods in agreement, where as Naliah doesn't say anything, just looks at the ground as if she doesn’t have anything to say on it. 

“Guilty or not we need some evidence.” Cornelia says plainly, already turning to walk back to the Equitus spire. “And we sure as hell aren’t going to find it standing here.”

They make their way towards the library, even more people seem to be staring and whispering at them this time. It seems everyone now knows that they're suspects, it isn’t the sort of attention Elyza really wants honestly. 

As they’re walking past the laboratories, a worried looking halfling girl with light brown hair spots them and seems to almost jump out in front of them. “Oh, uh, Hi there! My name’s Beree. I uh, I kinda have a problem. Could you guys help me out with it?” she says skittishly, her voice a higher pitch than expected.

“Oh, yes of course. How can we help?” Cariston asks happily, seemingly forgetting they’re in a hurry to solve a murder.

“So, uh. I was just doing my work in there and, uh. There’s no way to say this apart from I think my components came alive?”

“How did they come alive?” Cheese asks with a bit too much eagerness. “Can we go in and see, oh this could be interesting!”

“Wait, Cheese-” Cariston starts to say but Cheese speeds off through the door before anyone can think to stop him.

“We’ll be back” Cariston says to Beree, going in after Cheese. The rest of the group look at each other, Elyza sighing to herself softly before following suit, as do the rest of them. 

Inside the room there seems to be a hell of a lot of dust in the air, obscuring the tables and workbenches. At first, it just seems like someone was using something which produced this much dust, that’s when they hear a voice coming from the dust.

“Who are you?!”

“Great, the dust is talking to us. Just how I wanted my day to go.” Cornelia mumbles to herself, receiving a small smirk from Elyza in response. The others, mainly Cariston, seem more worried by the voice. But before he can say anything, Cheese replies to it.

“I’m Cheese and these are my friends. Why are you here, what are you?”

“Why does that matter? We’ve come here because we want to. There is death about, we know this.”

“What do you mean you know about death? Our friend Chell was killed, do you know anything about that?” Cariston chimes in, taking a step forward. Elyza isn’t really paying that much attention, assuming this is all some sort of really elaborate prank, that is until she sees something move in the dust. She by instinct goes for her longbow on her back, her eyes scanning around the rest of the room. 

“Yes, we know she died. Such a wonderful thing, isn’t it? She died, and now you all should too!”

Before anyone can react there’s a sudden burst of air and the dust flies towards the group. Elyza already ready to fight jumps out of the way and shields her eyes, feeling dust batter against her face. She opens her eyes, immediately looking around to check on the rest of the group. She meets Naliah’s eye and nods, hoping she’ll understand what she’s trying to say. She nods back at her, taking a step forward toward these creatures.

Elyza closes her eyes for a moment, looking right at the creature when she opens them again. she knocks an arrow into her bow as if its second nature and fires at the ugly long nose poking out of the dust. She watches with a smirk as it hits and the creature shrieks in pain.

Cariston seems to hold his hand forward and the creature seems to hold its head, whimpering as it starts to crumble in on itself before there’s another burst of dust. Elyza gets ready to shield her eyes again but the dust doesn’t travel very far. She looks around, seeing cheese rubbing dust from his eyes, Naliah seemingly growling as another creature appears out of the dust and starts to move towards them.

Elyza takes a few steps back, getting ready to shoot again, when Naliah summoning a sword out of thin air makes her stop. She watches for a moment, completely dumb struck on how the hell she managed to do that.

“Disgusting creatures!” Naliah grunts as she slashes through its dusty body. She then looks surprised, looking around at the rest of the group as if she’s seeing if they heard her speak. Her eye catches Elyza’s again and they both share a confused look for a moment before a bolt of fire hits the creature beside her. The same as the last one it seems to shrivel up and then burst into dust violently. Naliah isn’t prepared for it and chokes a little, stumbling out of the cloud but still keeping her footing.

Suddenly Elyza hears a small yelp of surprise as one of the creatures emerges from the dust and swipes at Cariston. He quickly lifts his shield and manages to deflect it, its long claws scraping loudly against the metal.

Elyza doesn’t see another creature emerging beside her before it’s too late. She goes to move out of the way but its claws catch her and she grunts in pain as it tears into the skin of her arm. She turns around angry, ready to shoot this thing in its ugly face when a flame slams into it. Elyza glances back to see Cornelia with flames surrounding her, as she readies her next attack. Naliah also seems to have joined in, wailing on some other poor creature that decided to try to attack her.

The creatures seem to be never ending, appearing then disappearing again into the dust, making it impossible to keep track of them. Cariston gets surrounded easily, the dust swirling around him as claws swipe at him. He tries to spin around to face them but they’re faster than he is. 

“Cariston, move!”

Cariston’s eyes widen as he hears Cornelia’s demand and barely has enough time to raise his shield before a cone of fire explodes where he’s standing. The creatures surrounding him yelp in pain as the flames glow and flicker, burning them as they try to retreat into the dust once again. Elyza feels a surge of adrenaline and joy as she watches it happen. But then it quickly turns to dread as the smoke clears and Cariston isn’t standing.

Time seems to slow down as she sees the shape of Cariston’a body slumped against the floor, scorch marked shield lay forgotten beside him. Naliah and Cornelia both seem to notice too which seems to spur them on to keep fighting. Elyza’s stomach drops as she realises it's up to her to help him.

She rushes over, it not catching up to her actually what she’s doing until she’s crouched down next to him laying her hand on him as it glows with a soft white energy. She stops, her eyes widening as she just stares at her hand. She tries to take deep breaths to calm the hell down and help. 

“F-Fuck. Shit.” She stammers, her eyes wide and her breathing erratic as her shaking hands make contact with his arm. She closes her eyes tight, feeling tears well there as images flash through her mind. She wasn’t strong enough, she’s never going to be-

The feeling of him jerking awake under her touch brings her back out of her own head. Her eyes dart to him as she tries to steady her own breathing again, giving him a hand to his feet. She notices the strange look he gives her as she quickly wipes at her eyes and readies her weapon again.

She fires off a few more shots, the rest of the group following suit until the dust in the room slowly starts to dissipate and no more creatures can be seen. It’s only as the room begins to clear that she notices Cheese isn’t standing with them.

“Cheese?” she calls out unsurely, scanning the room to see if he’s hidden by some taller object or something. To her surprise, he suddenly appears by the door, picking up some coins he seems to have dropped. He gives her a sheepish grin and explains he thought maybe the monsters wanted some gold so he tried to leave a trail to get them to leave the room. She simply just stares at him, definitely not going back on her statement that she’s stumbled across a bunch of absolute idiots. 

“Hey guys, check this out” Naliah says, holding up some sort of wand looking thing she seems to have found in the corner. Cariston’s eyes light up at the sight of it and he hurries over, examining it for a few seconds before he starts to mutter a few words under his breath. Elyza realises he’s casting some sort of spell, but before she can ask what he seems to perk up again.

“It’s a rod of communication. That’s why we could understand those things, I doubt they spoke common.”

“Yeah.” Naliah says, nodding in agreement “I was not speaking in common earlier, yet that’s what came out.”

“We better get back to Beree and tell her about this.”

Outside the room exactly where they left her, Beree stands there looking even more worried than before, her worry turning to relief as she sees them all. “Oh, you’re back. What did you find, did you stop the weird voices?”

“We took care of them. They were a pain in the ass, got my jacket covered in dust.” Cornelia says, sounding annoyed as she brushes some dust off of her sleeve. “Found some weird rod thing as well”

Cariston holds up the rod as if on cue and a look of realisation crosses her face. “Oh, my rod of communication. It all makes sense now, that’s how they were able to talk. Thanks so much for sorting that out, I'm working on my thesis and needed the lab to continue. Here, take this. It isn’t much but it's a reward for helping”

She holds out a giant key sort of looking thing, telling them its a wand of knocking. If they point it at something locked, it’ll cast the knock spell and unlock it. She gives them a final thanks before heading back into the laboratory room. 

Elyza has only been in the library maybe once or twice in the two years she’s been working at the academy with The Arcturus company. It’s normally filled with bright natural sunlight, lots of students writing and reading at the many desks set around the room. However, today it seems like a completely different place. The room seems darker than usual, the sky overcast with the sun struggling to peek through. There’s no life, no hustle and bustle. Just an empty room with a blood stain still very prominent on a desk to the right of the room. 

They all seem to just stop and take in the sight, maybe a few of them having similar thoughts to Elyza. She doesn’t know, doesn’t really want to know honestly. She was feeling okay, feeling confident they could do this and everything would be okay. But seeing this, seeing Chell’s blood still in the spot where she was murdered makes her stomach sink. The guilt she’s managed to keep at bay until now comes creeping back, clawing its way from her stomach up into her throat until she feels she can’t breathe. 

“I’m going to check the shelves and see if I can find any clues.” Cariston says, grounding Elyza slightly as she manages to take a deep shaky breath and nod. The rest of the group disperse, wandering over to different parts of the room. Cornelia mumbling to herself about how she's never even been in here before, what kind of weirdo enjoys being in a library.

Elyza finds herself walking over to the blood stained floor, her eyes wide and chest uncomfortably tight. If she’d been at her post, been actually doing her job rather than having a night of fun with some naive girl just because she could, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. Maybe Chell would still be alive and this disaster could be avoided, but maybes won’t bring her back. Elyza knows all too well that maybes and what ifs aren’t useful. They can’t bring anyone back, no matter how hard you wish.

“Is there a book missing up there? Look, there's a gap I think. “Cheese’s voice is loud in the silent library, drawing everyone's attention. Elyza shakes her head, trying to push back all the bad things running through her mind as she goes over to join Cheese and Cariston standing at a bookshelf. There is in fact a gap in the row of books, seeming to be the only one out of place.

“Our guy could have that book. If we found out who has it, we might find another clue at least” Elyza says to herself, more thinking out loud than anything else.

“Trizzi should have a list, right?” Naliah asks, also coming over to join them with Cornelia trailing behind her.

Cheese and Cariston both nod, talking about how they’re both never out of Trizzi’s office with how many books they check out. They all seem to agree they better go talk to Trizzi then and hope they can find another lead. Because so far, all they have is it wasn’t Jorin and that’s it. 

As they’re all leaving the library, Elyza finds herself eyeing the blood stained floor once again. The guilt suddenly so unbearable that she actually stops and just stares at it once more. She's normally good at lying and keeping secrets, she spent many years being this unreadable mystery. But now, now she feels like she’s some sort of criminal. Guilty, so incredibly guilty.

“Elyza, you coming?” Cornelia asks glancing over her shoulder. The rest of the group notice she isn’t following and stop as well. Suddenly, she has all eyes on her, and that’s when the panic begins to really hit.

“Okay, fuck. I...I have to admit something to you guys.”

“What is it?” Cheese asks, his little voice and big eyes staring up at her is almost too much to bear. They may all be giant fucking idiots, but they’re good. They're good, and kind. Everything Chell was too. 

“I...I saw Chell last night. She was out of her room when she wasn’t supposed to be. She just wanted to go to the library. I let her go, I didn’t think anything would happen to her. I was supposed to be on guard, to be keeping her safe, but…”

“But what? It’s not like you knew this would happen.” Cariston says softly, a look in his eyes Elyza recognises as pity, and she absolutely hates it. She doesn’t deserve pity, she doesn’t deserve anything.

“I was supposed to be on guard, patrolling this floor and keeping you safe, but I wasn’t. I made...plans with someone. I abandoned my post to spend the night with her.”

She watches as her words seem to wash over the rest of them, some of them understanding a lot faster than others. Cariston has an expression she can’t read on his face. She decides that’s a lot worse than pity ever could be.

“So, let me get this straight.” Cornelia starts, the most emotion you’ve ever seen on her face. “You skipped out on your job, just to sleep with a girl?”

“It’s not- it wasn’t like that. Look, I’m sorry. I just took some time out of one night and this shit happens. Do you think I wanted her to die? You think I want anyone to get hurt and for it to be my fault?!”

She doesn’t realise she’s shouting until silence falls over the room. It’s deafening, everyone’s stares not helping the panic and guilt still bubbling in her chest. “I couldn’t save her. Maybe I could have, but it’s too late now. I...I just wanted to tell you, to let you know…No matter what, we have to find out who did this. For Chell.”

“We do, and we’re running out of time. You nerds better be right about this book thing.” is all Cornelia says before turning and walking out of the room. Everyone seems to look at each other before following her out. Elyza tags along at the back, still feeling like she isn’t forgiven, but honestly she doesn’t care. 

The walk to Trizzi’s office is short, and within seconds of knocking on her door they hear scrambling from within. She answers the door looking a bit more flustered than usual, but seems to relax as she sees who it is. 

Cariston does most of the talking, which he seems quite accustomed too. Trizzi is happy to help of course, inviting them into the office and telling them to ignore the mess. The mess, as she describes it is just stacks and stacks of books and papers. She gives them a sheepish grin as she has to move a few creating an even bigger pile to retrieve the log book from her desk. She tells them Kervos was the last one to have that book checked out.

Trizzi tries to ask them if they’ve found anything yet, but their lack of progress seems frustrating even to her. She tells them to be careful and good luck before going back to her work. With them all stood outside Trizzi’s office and the knowledge that kervos definitely has more ties than originally thought, it’s obvious where they have to go. 

It’s Naliah who ends up taking the lead as they walk down the hall to Kervos’ room. She seems to have a strange determination in her stride as she’s several steps ahead of everyone else. Maybe she’s made up her mind that he’s guilty and she’s ready to beat the shit out of him, she definitely could after all.

After several hard knocks on the door and no reply or even movement heard from within, it’s obvious he isn’t in. Cheese immediately goes for the handle to try to open the door but is met with a stern look from Cariston.

“What?” he asks. “He might be a murderer, we have to investigate.”

Cariston just sighs in response. “I guess you’re right. I’d hate if someone went in my room without permission is all.”

“You’re not some crazed murderer as far as we know. So don’t worry, your precious nerdy books are safe in your room.” Cornelia says with a smirk, pushing down on the handle and then pouting slightly when it doesn’t open.

“Well, that sucks.” Elyza says dryly, looking around the group to see if anyone has anything else to add. No one seems to do anything, a few of them looking thoughtful before Cariston reaches into his pocket and pulls something out. Elyza watches in disbelief as he crouches down beside the lock and starts to pick it. There’s a tense moment where everyone seems to hold their breath waiting for the lock to click, but it doesn't. 

“That’s one tough lock.” He mumbles to himself, standing up again.

“Can I try?” Cheese asks, already making his way over and taking the tools out of Cariston’s hands before he can reply. Cariston seems to watch in horror as Cheese just shoves the delicate tool into the lock and shakes it about a bit.

“Cheese-”

“-You’re doing it wrong, this is obviously how its done.” Cornelia says as she all but shoves Cheese out of the way and starts to wiggle it from side to side instead.

“Please don’t break it.” Cariston says quietly, looking like he’s completely given up. Eventually both Cornelia and Cheese realise it isn’t working and let Cariston try again. He spends a good twenty or thirty seconds, moving the tools ever so lightly. His eyes squinting slightly in concentration when- click.

The door opens finally, and they all pile in quickly, suddenly aware that they’re quite literally breaking into someone's room. Like before, each of them start looking around the room for anything that could be a clue. It doesn’t take long for Cheese to find the missing book from the library, which him and Cariston seem to be fascinated by. Elyza doesn't really care for the book, she doesn’t understand all the magic stuff they all talk about. Instead, she spends her time in the room looking everywhere she can think of until she finds another kind of book. Flicking open the pages, she realises it’s a diary. 

Flicking through, the entries start long, ranging over several pages rambling on and on about classes and people. But then they start getting shorter. Slowly, one by one they’re shorter and shorter until the dates seem to span over months rather than days. They mention him being frustrated at his lack of progress, how he needs more power to succeed. The latest entry makes Elyza’s stomach sink as she reads it.

‘All the lessons, all the teaching, they don’t tell you the truth. It’s not learning that gives you power. Kalira, she showed me the truth. Its bargaining that gives you true power. That's how she gained her power. Now to learn how to use it. It keeps telling me it needs blood. The first only fed it for so long. Though now he serves me, and it granted me power. But I want more. I need more! Perhaps if I feed it a more gifted subject, it will grant me more strength. I have the perfect candidate in mind. When I graduate, I'm to meet Kalira and the rest of the cult on the fringes of the forest to the east. There our plans will unfold. But for now, I must grow in power’ 

“I, uh. I think we found our guy.” Elyza says, handing the diary to Cariston who’s frown seems to deepen as he reads. Everyone crowds around, trying to read over his shoulder. There’s almost a moment of excitement among them, that is until the words hit them, and they all start to understand exactly what this means.

This wasn’t just a one-off thing. This was planned, and there really is some psycho murderer among them. Elyza finds herself walking away from the group, the anger bubbling up inside her at the thought of this idiot killing an innocent girl, all because he has some deluded thought that he’ll gain power from it. It makes her feel so sick, and so fucking angry.

“Hey, this wardrobe is locked.” Cheese says, drawing Elyza back to reality. He pulls the door trying to open it but it won’t budge. Cariston comes over to try, getting the same result before he also tries to pick the lock on it. It’s a lot easier than the one on the door and clicks open after a few seconds. Cheese thanks him and opens the door, instantly recoiling as something swings out at him. 

As Cheese and Cariston back up a smell of death and decay washes over the room. Elyza nearly gags from the smell of it, covering her mouth with her hand as she looks towards the now open wardrobe. There, climbing out with impossibly long limbs is a humanoid creature with white decaying skin. It’s hands are like claws, sharp nails scratching against the wood as it moves. It looks at them and gives this terrifying smile of razor sharp teeth.

ELyza’s first instinct isn’t to fight for once. It’s to run and get the fuck out of here. She takes a step back from where she is closest to the door, watching in disbelief as everyone seems to ready themselves for a fight. She just stares for a moment, it taking Naliah summoning her sword and running at the thing to snap her out of it. She quickly readys her bow and shoots an arrow, being careful not to hit Naliah who’s now slashing across it’s disgusting body. 

"Oh fuck no" Cornelia says with a snarl, flames erupting in her hands as she glares at the horrifying creature. She throws a bolt of fire at it, watching as its skin begins to burn, but it doesn't react. So far Elyza hasn't seen Cornelia show that much emotion, but now she sees it clear as day on her face as she takes a step back, firing off more fire attacks at it. Fear, she's scared.

Elyza shivers in disgust as she watches this monster get hit by attack after attack, only for it to grin wildly, looking completely deranged. It strikes back against Naliah, her crying out in pain as its claws rip against her chest. She seems to wobble on her feet, but manages to stay up right. Elyza thinks about running forward to help her, but she honestly does not want to get close to this thing. Naliah growls and attacks it again with her sword, speaking in a harsh tongue that no one understands.

"Naliah, watch out!" Cheese shouts as he pulls something out of his pocket. Suddenly he throws his hands forward and a large puddle of grease appears beneath the monster. Naliah seems to slip slightly, but stands her ground. The creature on the other hand seems to shift and buckle to its knees before falling onto its side when it tries to move again.

Time seems to slow down as they hit it with everything they’ve got. The creature doesn’t stay down for long, seeming to find its feet and stay up. Elyza fires as many arrows as she possibly can into it while avoiding everyone else in the room. Cornelia seems to be trying to do the same with her fire magic, but the small size of the room and how crowded it is is not helping at all.

It slashes and bites at Naliah, Its sharp claws slamming against her shield as she snarls and manages to push it back. Just as its broken bloody body looks as if it’s finally about to give up on it, Its eyes go wide and it tries to rush past Naliah to take a swipe at Cariston. Naliah seems to say something else in that same language from before as she stabs her sword into the creature stopping it in its tracks. It makes this horrifying moan that turns into a soft gurgling as it starts choking on its own blood. As she pulls her sword back with a scowl, it drops to the ground, unmoving.

Elyza sighs a sigh of relief, finally being able to place her weapon away. The whole group seem to do the same, Elyza and Cariston both seeming to start checking everyone is okay at the same time. Their eyes meet, and for the first time that day Cariston doesn’t look so guarded and on edge. He smiles at her, making her stop what she’s doing for a moment. They seem to have some sort of unspoken conversation before she simply nods back at him. 

Cheese, who so far seems to have avoided getting even a scratch on him, quickly starts investigating where the creature came from. Cariston tries to warn him to be careful while he quite literally has his hands full with healing Naliah, but if course Cheese doesn't listen. 

He finds strange wards and spell tokens, things Elyza has never seen before in her life, but really that isn't that much of a surprise. Cariston seems to abandon his healing duty immediately to investigate them with Cheese. They talk quietly about what this all means. Elyza doesn't understand a lot of it, but she understands that Korves was doing really fucked up shit that they definitely did not teach him at the academy.

With everyone tended to and the creature definitely dead, they all instinctively know what they have to do now.

_________________________________________________________________________

When Trizzi is shown the diary, she pales considerably. She seems to just stare at the pages for a moment, looking lost in her thoughts as a tight frown pulls at her lips. Something about it troubles her dearly, which really it should. It’s probably the fact that one of her own students has been murdering his classmates for some greater being he’s decided he needs to grab favours for. 

She makes them all wait in the common room as she finds Varin to show him the diary. They only have to wait about twenty minutes before Varin appears with a few of his men. Elyza recognises most of them and they seem to give her strange looks to what she’s doing there. She has no doubt the rumours have spread by now about her.

“So, you found this where exactly?” Is all Varin says as he flicks through the pages of the diary.

“In Kervos’ room, obviously. I mean, it is his diary” Cornelia replies in her usual manor. 

Varin looks like he’s about to say something in reply to her disrespect, but he doesn’t. His mouth forming into a thin line as he reads through the last entry. “Well, this certainly does give some proof that he’s to blame. Do you have anymore?”

“There was this creature which he kept locked in his wardrobe. As soon as the doors opened, it attacked us. It nearly killed Naliah.” Cariston says with a pointed stare, obviously not backing down just because Varin has more authority. “Go to his room, see for yourself.”

Varin stares him down for a moment before he turns to his guards and waves them off. They take the hint and quickly make their way down the hall. There’s a yell of surprise as the first one enters the room. A few seconds later a very startled looking guard reports back that there is in fact a dead horrifying creature in the room.

“Well, I think that solves it then.” He says looking at the group. “Trizzi? Call him back.”

Trizzi seems to concentrate on something for a moment before she starts to speak “Erm, Hello Kervos. Can you please report back to the dorms, I need to see you.” She waits a moment, looking over the group “Well, he got that message. So, erm, I imagine he should be returning soon. 

They wait. First about half an hour, then an hour. Time seems to go by at an incredibly slow pace. Elyza is just about to ever give up hope of catching this guy, when he walks into the room. He looks around, confused at first until it clicks exactly what is happening. He turns to leave again, but guards move to stop him. He turns around panicked, eyes darting around the room desperately.

“Don’t try anything, or we will harm you.” Varin warns in a stern tone. “Surrender. Now.”

Korvos’ face crumbles as he realises what’s going to happen and he seems to give up in that moment. Seizing the opportunity, the guards flank him and bound his hands behind his back. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t scream or shout like you'd think he would. He just lets them do what they want. 

Elyza badly wants to plant an arrow right between his eyes for what he’s done. To Chell, to anyone else he’s hurt to try do something as stupid as win favours from a stupid higher being. She hates him, and she wants to use that hate to destroy him. But really, that doesn't make her any better than he is.

_________________________________________________________________________

Korvos was found guilty for the murder of two students at the academy, and was executed for his crimes. The academy hasn’t felt the same since, but it's getting better. Elyza has stuck to her patrols, keeping out of any dramatic business. She’s seen the students around, shared odd glances and smiles with them, but that’s it. 

She’s heard rumours that they’re graduating early and going with Trizzi on some business for the academy. She’s also heard much more outrageous rumours that they’re only getting to go because they killed an army of demons, or that Cariston is sleeping with Trizzi. Elyza just laughs when she hears that one, gossip really can be a lot of fun when it's that ridiculous.

She doesn’t think that much on it all, happy for them that they’re getting out of this place. That is until she hears rumours that a guard will be getting chosen to escort them to the city they’re traveling to. She finds herself fantasizing about it while on the night guard, being able to leave this place and travel. 

She’s traveled before, but long ago and she definitely didn’t enjoy it. She’s older now, in a much much better place than she was back then. She reckons she’d like the chance to get to go explore the world once again. Sure she’d be with a bunch of idiots who set each other on fire, but they work well together. If she had to have anyone watching her back, they wouldn’t be the worst people for it.

A few days before they’re due to leave, Elyza gets called into Varin’s office. She’s a bit scared she’s fucked something up and he’s going to scream at her. But as she walks in the room he offers her a drink as she sits down. She then nearly chokes on that very drink as he tells her that she’s going to be the one escorting them to Strasa. 

She has questions, of course she fucking does. As far as she was aware, she was going to be living out the rest of her miserable life working with the company. But apparently, he has other plans for her. He mentions how impressive it was that they not only managed to work together and bring korvos to justice, but also killed that creature which he informs her is a ghast, which should have definitely killed them. 

The job is simple: She has to escort and protect the kids as they travel to Strasa, after that she’s free to do what she wants. She can’t believe it. He gives her some money as a forward payment which she pockets eagerly, feeling like this must be a dream and she’s bound to wake up soon. 

It isn’t a dream. She wakes up the next day, then the next after that, and it's still as real as ever. Until the day they leave, everyone standing at the gate with their bags packed and loaded onto the cart. Trizzi fussing about, checking everything is ready. It’s real, it’s all real. 

She can’t help but smile as she boards the cart with the rest of them, ready to get the hell out of here and see what’s waiting for them.


	2. The Capital Of The Empire

Until now, Elyza hasn’t talked to Trizzi much. Trizzi has always seemed impossibly out of reach, but also incredibly close all at once. She’s kind, thoughtful, and incredibly helpful to her students. Elyza admires her, she really does. That admiration definitely has a crush attached to it, but she never thought she would ever act on it. 

Well, traveling with Trizzi and the rest of them sure complicates that. Elyza is finding more and more adorable traits to like about Trizzi. Before she knows it, she’s awake at night while everyone else is asleep, listing them all. She has to tell herself off, to not go chasing after something she can’t have. She’s happy with acknowledging her little crush, but that’s all it can ever be. Trizzi isn’t like Miya, or any other girls Elyza has been with in the past. She’s off limits, and that’s that.

Luckily, Elyza can’t get too far in her own head about all of this, as her ‘charges’ aren’t exactly a handful or anything, but they sure make the journey interesting. 

A few hours into travelling, Cheese stands up abruptly, making his way over to his little backpack and rummaging around in it. Elyza looks to Cariston who gives her a just as curious look back. In fact, she’s about to ask what he’s doing, when he makes a noise and sits back down again with an unopened envelope in his hands.

Everyone seems to be watching him as he hums to himself happily and opens the letter. His eyes scan over the writing with incredible speed, a small smile on his face before he sets it aside and reaches into the envelope once more and pulls out a ring.

“Oh, this is so exciting!” he announces to them all. 

“What is it?”

“Well, professor Reginald thought I would look out of place as a mouse in the city, so he gave me this.” Cheese replies, holding up the ring so everyone can get a better look at it.

“Jewellery can make you less of a mouse?” Cornelia asks with a frown, obviously confused by the concept.

“It’s going to disguise me, make me look like anything I want.” Cheese answers, saying it like it's the most obvious thing in the world. “But what do I want to look like…”

“Well, the best choice is probably-” 

“-Oh, I know! I’ll look like your little brother, Cariston. Humans are the easiest to imitate.”

Cariston goes to say something else, but Cheese is already grinning excitedly, concentrating as he puts on the ring, which is more of a bracelet due to how small his hands are. He seems to sit there for ages, not even moving as he stares at the ring. After about an hour, Elyza looks up and has to stop herself from yelping in surprise, as there sat across from her is a small child. 

It’s the strangest thing, one moment Cheese the mouse is sitting there, and then suddenly a smaller version of Caristion appears. Everyone seems to just stare, blinking a few times in disbelief. Poor Trizzi looks up from the book she’s reading and has to do a double take.

“Oh, erm. Cheese, you look…” Trizzi trails off, looking a bit flustered, but also very excited about this. Elyza couldn’t care less for all this magic bullshit. Like it’s cool he can now look like a different person, but she doesn't even want to think about how it all works. She has her own magic, her healing spells and a few other things she’s picked up along the way, but she doesn’t really like to think on them. 

Things seem to settle down again, everyone giving Cheese a few confused glances before seeming to remember again that yes, it is Cheese, and that Cariston hasn’t turned into a five-year-old boy. Cariston looks a bit shaken by it all but is as equally as excited for Cheese. It's obvious the two of them are close, it's nice to see honestly.

After a long silence which everyone seems to realise feels a bit awkward, Cariston speaks up and asks Trizzi what book she’s reading. She seems surprised he asked, carefully marking her page before she shuts the book and begins a very long winded explanation on what it's about. Elyza tries to listen and keep up, she really does, but she gets lost somewhere in the middle when Trizzi starts talking about her own theories on the subject. 

She just smiles, watching Trizzi launch into another related topic while Cariston listens to her eagerly. Elyza does not have a clue what Trizzi is even talking about, but in usual Trizzi manner, her excitement about it is adorable. Elyza sighs softly to herself, adding another thing to the ever growing list of adorable Trizzi traits. 

As they approach Kier, the first stop on their journey, Trizzi gives them a bit of information on how things are going to go. They’re going to be in Kier for two weeks, while Trizzi does some work for the academy. After that they’ll then move onto Strasa, where there will be some more work with the academy and the students will be expected to help. 

Upon arriving in Kier, Elyza starts to feel a little less uneasy. The streets are full of people, but it isn’t overwhelming so. Trizzi explains that the lights festival for the summer solstice has just ended. She points out a few decorations still left up as they travel through the streets, murals and paintings of brilliant yellows and oranges bring a strange but pleasant brightness to the place. 

The carriage stops outside of a tavern in the trade district named ‘The Absent Elf Inn’. Trizzi explains the academy has paid for a few rooms here for them all to stay in here. Elyza is quick to pick up her belongings from the carriage, deciding it's best to just pick a room, and then whoever wants to share with her can.

Everyone has a similar amount of luggage, apart from cheese who seems to have way, way more than anyone else. He seems to have brought...cages? Elyza realises exactly what the cages are for when he lifts the blanket placed over them and starts to chat excitedly with the mice inside. Cariston is the closest one to him at the time, which means he’s forced into a rather hasty introduction to Cheese’s family.

“-And this is my cousin-aunt, she was just my cousin, but I forgot to separate them and then oops, more family members for us!”

Elyza decides she does not want to be part of whatever that’s going to turn into and hurry’s up to the room she’s given. It’s a fairly basic room with two beds in it, each one pressed against the opposite wall so there’s some space for her belongings beside her bed. She goes through the motions, doing what she’s used to by now. Settle in, check the room for anything weird, unpack the same items she always does, ready to leave quickly if she has to.

She finds herself sitting on the bed, just staring ahead lost in thought. She was excited about all of this, excited that this was a chance. A chance to do something, to be better. But now, she’s not so sure. In the academy, she was safe. Away from prying eyes and no one knew who she was, who she really was anyway. But here, she’s out in the open again. Suddenly the knots in her stomach aren’t from excitement, but from dread. She takes a deep breath, her hands starting to shake as she squeezes them into fists tightly. 

He can’t find you here, you’re safe. 

She repeats that over and over again until the panic passes and she starts to feel slightly more like a person again.

Her thoughts are interrupted by several of the inn’s staff carrying a ridiculous amount of luggage into the room, shortly followed by Cornelia, who as usual, seems nonchalant about the whole thing. 

“Naliah took the last room, so it looks like we’re sharing.”

Elyza manages a smirk, her breath less shaky now as she sees the perfect opportunity to have fun with this. “Not looking forward to having a roommate then?”

“I’m used to my own room. My father always saw to it that I had everything I wanted, a room to myself being a basic need.”

“Used to getting your own way, huh princess?”

Cornelia seems taken aback, the smirk only widening on Elyza’s face at the reaction. “I have a certain standard of life, not that some lowly guard like yourself could ever understand that.”

“Oh ouch, I’m wounded.” Elyza says, a hand to her chest as her eyes meet Cornelia’s. “I’ll try not make your time here with me too unbearable. In fact, I think you’ll enjoy it.”

Cornelia rolls her eyes at Elyza’s flirting, staring her down for a moment before huffing and moving over to her belongings and starting to unpack them. Elyza just smiles to herself. Sharing a room with little miss prissy will be great fun, and hopefully getting to know the rest of them a little bit better will make this whole thing worthwhile.  
________________________________________________________________________

They spend the first morning settling in and unpacking, Cheese trying to introduce his family to anyone that will listen. By the afternoon, they’re all settled in and decide to take a walk into the market to at least just have a look around.

Elyza watches as the students seem to chat excitedly, Cornelia and Naliah even exchanging a few words in pleasant conversation. It is nice to see them all getting on so well, but it makes it all the more apparent the wedge that’s drawn between them and her. She’s a guard protecting them, making sure they don’t get into trouble. She doesn’t belong here, she certainly doesn’t belong with them. 

She’s broken out of her thoughts as she notices Naliah stop, looking into an alleyway to the left of them while the rest of the group continue onwards. Elyza watches her carefully, an uneasy feeling coming over her as Naliah seems to grin wildly, a look in her eyes which is not normal. Elyza watches her for a couple of seconds, the feeling of unease only growing as Naliah doesn’t move, just keeps on staring and grinning. She moves to catch up to Naliah, her hand already on her bow. Elyza isn’t some inexperienced child, she’s seen people become mad and violent. She’s sunk more than a few arrows into said peoples heads before they’ve had a chance to hurt others. She doesn’t want to hurt Naliah, but she will if she has to. But when she gets there, Naliah is looking at her innocently, as if nothing has happened. 

“What’s wrong, Elyza?” she asks softly, the rest of the group finally seeming to have noticed they’ve stopped.

“...Are you okay?” Elyza asks, cautiously taking another step towards her as she tries to go over in her head what she’s just seen. 

“Yeah. I just saw a kitten in that alleyway. It was cute.”

“A...kitten?” Elyza replies, looking down the alleyway to see if she can spot it, but it seems to be empty. The whole place gives her the creeps and she decides that whatever the hell just happened they better just ignore it and catch up with the others. 

She thinks of trying to tell Cariston, or someone, about what she’s just seen with Naliah, but then decides against it. Naliah seems to be back to her same mysterious self, and she hasn’t yet summoned a sword to kill anyone, so maybe she is okay. Elyza just puts it down to maybe she really does just like cats, but makes a mental note to keep a close eye on her. 

It’s a decently busy market day, many people milling around the stalls and shops as the group make their way through. There are the usual shouts of people trying to sell their wares, as others pack their stalls away for the day, a sight Elyza is definitely used to. She feels a strange twinge of something as she realises she sort of misses Pyke and her trade. She knows it's for the best that she left. Knows that if she stayed there, she would only be unhappy. But she misses doing something, being something other than just another boring guard, especially now that she's just protecting some kids. 

“I’m begging you, please. Please help me!”

They all seem to look as they hear a shrill voice nearby. A human woman seems to be clutching at a man's arm, a desperate look in her eyes as she begs for help. The man just shakes his head, uncomfortably moving her hands off of him and telling her there’s nothing he can do. She sees them looking over, tears welling in her eyes as she moves towards them.

“Can you please help me? My daughter- my daughter is missing, and the guard won’t help. Oh, please help!”

No one seems to move at first, them all just exchanging glances at each other before Cariston seems to speak up. “Your daughter? What happened, are you okay?”

“She’s been missing for two days now- and- I’m sorry” She cuts herself off with a small sob “It's just that no one will help find her.”

“I...of course we’ll help.” Cariston says, a little unsurely as he looks at the rest of the group, obviously seeking agreement.

“Oh thank you, thank you so much! We can talk about this at my house, I'll make us all some tea.”

They all end up following this woman back to her house. Elyza does think to tell them that they really shouldn’t trust strangers and follow them home, but really this woman seems harmless. She’s just a distraught mother who no one seems to be listening to. Something, yet again, Elyza is all too used to seeing. Once they arrive, she makes them all a soothing tea, which she drinks with shaking hands. Her eyes are wide, erratic, dark heavy bags under them from a lack of sleep. She gives them some basic details, leading them to her daughter’s bedroom, but not seeming to want to enter the room.

“As I said before, my daughter, Elizabeth, She’s been missing for two days now. The guard said they would look into it but haven’t found anything yet.”

“How old is she?” Cheese asks, seeming to get a bit of a strange look from her. It isn’t a surprise she’s confused honestly, he does currently look like a five year old boy after all.

“She just turned thirteen last week.”

Cheese seems to think for a moment before replying. “You know, once someone is missing for over 24 hours, the chances of finding them alive is almost zero.”

“Yeah, he’s right. She’s definitely dead.” Cornelia chimes in.

The woman looks horrified, her eyes darting between Cheese and the rest of the group. Luckily, Cariston steps in to try to save the day, as usual. “Um, please ignore them. Now, is there any reason she would run off, or has anything like this ever happened before?”

She seems hesitant, like she wants to say something, but won’t. Elyza watches her, deciding if she should try to coax anything else out of this woman. She looks scared and worried enough as it is without having to deal with this lot and their not so incredible social skills.

“If there’s anything else you know, it’ll help us find her.” Cariston says, maybe a little more sternly than he needed to. She seems to flitch slightly, a frown tugging at her lips.

“This...This sort of thing happened once before. When she was a baby, just a few days old, she was taken. A guard found her about a week later and returned her to us.”

“Wow, you lost her as a baby too? You must be a really bad parent.” Cheese says, Elyza already reaching out to try to get him to shut the hell up. She grabs his arm, giving it a squeeze and glare as he turns to look at her.

“We’ll do everything we can to find her.” Cariston says, giving the woman a warm smile. “Is this her room, do you mind if we have a look around?”

She tells them to take as long as they need and quickly darts away before they can go in the room. Naliah gives her a strange look, but Elyza gets it. She sure as hell isn’t a mother, but she understands grief. She understands that that bedroom is probably one of the most painful places for that poor mother to set eyes on just now. 

As they open the door to the room it becomes apparent this is definitely not the room of a normal teenage girl. There are spiders skittering around the floor, way too many for them to have just found their way inside themselves. Where there would usually be cheery dolls with bright clothing on, there are disturbing dolls made of sticks and rags.

Cariston immediately starts looking at the dolls, going through a few theories out loud as the rest of them fan out and search the rest of the room. Cornelia seems to be staying by the door, watching the spiders warily, which honestly Elyza doesn’t blame her for. She isn't the biggest fan of spiders herself, there’s just something about all their legs and eyes. Definitely gross and creepy, but she doesn't let it get to her too much.

“The spiders, the dolls...I’m pretty sure they’re the signs of a hag.” Carriston says as he picks up one of the dolls, turning it over as if he’s looking for something on it. “This is bad.”

Naliah finds a diary under the pillow on the bed, a triumphant smile on her face as she holds it up to show the others. They all crowd around to read it, Cariston taking lead in reading aloud to the group since they can’t quite all read it at once. 

The diary entries seem to be the usual teenage business with crushes on boys and not knowing what to wear. As it gets closer to her thirteenth birthday the entries seem to start getting darker. She talks about her hair thinning and turning grey. Her mother has tried to convince her it's just puberty, but Elizabeth wonders why it isn't happening to her friends then. She’s suddenly fascinated by gore and death, spending hours just looking at dead animals and grinning.

The last entry is from two days ago which simply says: ‘It is my time. I have to find the true mother. The spiders lead the way.’

“That...yeah, that’s a hag.” Cariston says, seeming a bit shaken as he closes the diary and places it down on the bed. 

“What do we do?” Cheese asks, looking up at Cariston, looking actually worried for the first time since this whole thing started.

“We, well- we follow the spiders.” he says, pointing towards the window where the spiders indeed seem to be leaving the room through the open window. Elyza has a bad feeling about this as she follows the others as they very carefully make their way out of the window, making sure not to touch any of the spiders which they all somehow do. 

Elyza takes lead, them all keeping a look out as they follow this trail of spiders out the back of the house, seeming to take countless twists and turns through back alleys. They all seem to freeze as they hear a child laughing. There are no children in sight, and the laugh sounds...wrong somehow.

"We need to tell someone about this, who knows how many other children this hag has taken." Cariston says as they all carry on, seeming a lot more on edge now.

"There will be more guards on the streets, right? We can tell them." Cheese pipes up, pointing to the street the spiders now seem to be leading them to.

It isn't hard to find a guard to share their discovery with. However, finding one that doesn't look at them like they're insane is the issue. The pair they've found on patrol give them a strange look as they recount the tale of hags and missing girls, definitely not seeming convinced but saying they'll report it to their captain. Elyza walks away from the exchange feeling a lot more on edge than before, probably due to the guard suspecting the group more than anything else. Extra attention is not something she needs right now. 

The spiders lead to a seemingly abandoned run down house in the slums. Cariston inspects the door for a moment, looking back to the rest of the group quickly before trying the handle. Surprisingly, the door is unlocked and opens with a soft creak. Elyza expects the place to be empty, or at very least for the body of the child to be there, however what greets them is a beautiful young woman sitting in an armchair, a glass of liquid which seems to be wine in her hand.

Elyza is taken aback. In fact, that's an understatement. She's amazed such a beautiful woman could be, well, in this place. She realises as she's staring at the woman, her mouth slightly agape, that the entire group have all turned to give her the same disapproving look. It takes her a moment to realise why.

"Oh come on, I'm not that stupid." She says gesturing to the woman in front of them. "It's obviously a trap."

"There's no trick here, I'm just looking for some company." The woman says, tilting her glass slightly with a smile. "Won't you come drink with me?"

They all look at each other, not knowing what to think. Cariston seems to take initiative as usual. "We're looking for a girl, Elizabeth, Have you seen her?"

The woman just keeps smiling, her expression not changing. "Won't you sit with me? The wine is delicious."

"Look, can you stop with the cryptic shit and answer? I can not be bothered dealing with this." Cornelia says, sounding almost bored as she waves a hand dismissively.

Her face shifts, almost unnaturally into a soft smirk. "Fine, I am Elizabeth. That answers your question, no?"

"But you're…" Cariston starts, trailing off as he meets her eye, her smirk widens, if that's possible.

"Am I not up to your expectations? Or did you just expect to find something else?"

"No, I just- uh" he scrambles over his words, a look of confusion and slight panic evident on his face.

"Excuse me, miss Elizabeth? Your parents are worried, I think you should go home." Cheese says sweetly, probably trying a new approach as they all seem to be just going around in circles with this girl.

Elyza honestly finds it hard to believe this girl is apparently so young, she looks much much older than thirteen, if this really is her that is. Elyza doesn't know anything about hags though, so if Cariston is right in his ideas on what she is, then maybe this is just part of their whole thing.

"Oh, fuck this." Cornelia basically growls, storming forward towards the woman as she yet again taunts them about joining her for wine. Elizabeth grins as Cornelia grabs the glass and drinks the small amount of liquid in it. Almost immediately she seems to freeze, her eyes going wide as she looks at the rest of the group. They all watch her carefully, looking for some sign of movement, for anything, but it doesn't happen. She just stands there, staring wide eyed back at them all.

"Oh this is so much fun! Would the rest of you like to join us?" Elizabeth asks with a giggle, pouring more wine into the glass which she takes out of Cornelia's hand. Cornelia's eyes follow her, the anger shining brightly in them.

"...What did you do to her?" Elyza finds herself asking, her voice low and dangerous as she draws her bow. She sees Naliah beside her summoning her sword with a click of her fingers and a growl. Her sword is different somehow, it looks darker, heavier...it makes Elyza feel uneasy. 

Elizabeth seems to falter, the grin on her face falling to a frown. "You want to fight? Well, that's unfortunate." She seems to flick her wrist slightly and a large mass of the very spiders they followed here begin streaming from the ceiling, the walls, everywhere they possibly can. They come to sit around her as what once was a beautiful Elizabeth now seems to be an ugly disgusting creature scowling at them. "I wanted to have fun, but it seems that you're not going to let me!"

_________________________________________________________________________

"I fucking hate spiders!" Cornelia screams as she kills the last of the spiders with a blast of fire. She's breathing heavily, flames surrounding her as she glares at the corpse of the decrepit ugly hag. Cariston has his hands full with healing Naliah who took quite a beating in the fight. She charged in first, keeping the hag busy while the spiders seemed to come for the rest of them. Cornelia seemed to be paralysed for a long time, until suddenly she erupted in flames and the spiders weren't so much a problem when burnt.

Elyza just watches everyone as the battle ends, Cariston checking everyone is okay, looking rather worn out from all the spells he's just fired off in quick succession. She checks herself over, noticing she's pretty much unharmed, before helping Cariston. The glow from his healing spell makes panic spike in her chest for a moment. She pushes it away with a shaky breath, moving away from him to check cornelia is okay now she's less on fire. 

"Well, that was a disaster. Look at this stuff, it isn't even nice wine!" Cornelia says, holding up the bottle as Elyza is about to speak. She notices that in fact the wine doesn't seem to be wine at all and the hag must have been using some sort of magic to make it look like fancy wine. Cornelia seems to be greatly upset at being forced to drink something that wasn't wine and is adamant the whole group needs to know about it. Elyza can't help but smirk watching her throw a tantrum like a prissy princess.

"Oh yes, it must have been terrible for you princess." Elyza begins with the utmost sarcasm in her voice. Cornelia all but glares at her, her glare softening as Elyza continues. "You're okay though, bad tasting wine aside?"

"Of course I am, I can take care of myself…thanks, I guess. Whatever."

"Well, that was definitely a hag then, huh?" Cheese says, poking the corpse with some sort of childlike fascination. 

"Yeah, definitely a hag.” Cariston says, coming to join Cheese looking over the body. The rest of the group converge on it too, all staring down at the ugly mess for a moment. Its mouth seeming too big for its face, long greying strands of hair lying limply across its head, luckily covering most of the face so they don't have to see it in all its horror.

"We have to tell her family." Cariston says, giving the rest of the group a quick glance before looking down again. A silence fills the room, stretching on for several moments as the weight of that hits them. Elyza knew whatever they found they would have to report back to the family, but she expected to find a dead child, not...this.

"Do you think the guards will want proof this happened?" Cheese asks, finally stopping the weird examination of the body he seemed so fascinated with doing.

"I can take her head off." Naliah says, her sword still in hand as she lifts it slightly. "We can take it and that's our proof if needed."

"Not the most subtle or graceful. But yeah, knowing guards, they'll want something before they take us seriously." Elyza rubs her temple, already feeling a headache coming on from all this mess already. So much for keeping a low profile, soon the whole city guard will know the group, and more importantly her.

They decide to behead the hag, Naliah managing to do it quite easily. No one misses the slight gagging noise Cornelia makes as she watches. They end up back tracking to Elizabeth's home, deciding to let the family know what happened before getting involved with the guard.

Elyza feels that nervous flutter in her stomach she's used to by now as Cariston knocks on the door. After a moment, a man answers, looking over them all cautiously as he asks if he can help.

"Your wife, I assume, asked us to help find your daughter." Cariston starts, trying to keep any hint of what they've found out of his voice.

"Oh yes of course, she was telling me about you guys. Please, come in." He says quickly, opening the door wider and stepping aside. 

Cariston goes to do just that, when Cornelia makes a grab for the bag with the head in from Naliah. Elyza see's what she's trying to do immediately and grabs her arm, her grip firm with a quiet growl of a warning. Cornelia does seem to stop for a moment, a look Elyza can't read crossing her face before she speaks up. "It'll be easier just to show you." 

"Cornelia, what the fuck?" Elyza hisses, her grip tightening. "You can't show him that."

"Why not, it isn't his daughter, and it's not my problem so-”

"-Sorry about that, ignore them. Elyza, can you wait outside with Cornelia please?" Cariston asks, giving Elyza a look she definitely understands. The father seems confused, but ushers the other three inside while Cornelia seems to be sulking, as Elyza stares her down.

"Cornelia, what the hell was that?"

"What? It isn't his daughter, she never was. Why not just show him and let him get over it. It isn't our problem if he's sad or whatever."

Elyza just stares at her, not knowing where to even begin. She knew cornelia was a bit above it all and acted as if she isn't like the rest of them. But never did Elyza think this woman could be so incredibly insensitive.

"What is wrong with you?" Elyza finds herself asking, not able to form any other thought. "Why would you think that's a good idea? That's a grieving family there. Are you so above us all you don’t think your actions have consequences?"

Elyza expects for Cornelia to listen, to reflect on what's being said. Which is why when Cornelia simply tuts, she thinks she may end up hurting her. "Oh please, I can do as I like, I always have. My father never stopped me, so why should I stop now?"

"You're not home anymore with your precious father who can protect you. You're here now with us, and-"

"-and what, exactly?" Cornelia asks, the same pissed off look on her face Elyza has seen when she doesn't immediately get her own way. "What are you going to do about it?"

Elyza swears in frustration, the words leaving her mouth in a sharp tongue she hasn't used in many years. The anger she feels is immense, and she feels power building up and up until she feels she may explode. She turns to Cornelia, her eyes burning, and malice behind her words as she feels the magic energy dissipating with each syllable spoken. 

Cornelia flinches, looking confused for a moment before she brings a hand up to her head and winces, looking almost scared as she looks at Elyza. She blinks, once, twice, realisation dawning on her what Elyza has done and she's right back to looking angry.

Elyza should feel bad, if not bad then at least guilty for using her magic to hurt someone. She doesn't. She feels triumphant, accomplished, proud to see that smug smirk wiped off Cornelia's face. She isn't invincible, and she needs to fucking learn that. 

They just glare at each other, Cornelia eventually looking away with a huff as she turns her back, determined to keep up her spoilt brat routine. Elyza lets her sulk, she doesn’t try to fix the situation. If anything else had happened she might try to talk it out, apologise, but she knows she’s in the right with this one. After a good ten minutes, the rest of the group come back out, all looking a little bit solemn, but that’s to be expected.

“We need to sort this, we can’t let this happen to anyone else.” Cheese says sounding the most serious Elyza has ever heard him. He isn’t making eye contact, eyes on the ground as he speaks. “We need to go back to that house tonight, to see if the mother hag returns. If we stay there and keep watch, we can catch her."

"I agree with cheese. No other family should have to go through what they've been through." Cariston says with a small sad nod towards the house. 

"Well, I guess we should show the guards the head and explain the whole story." Naliah adds, moving the bag in her hand a bit uncomfortably, probably because of what it contains. 

So they do just that, yet again easily finding a guard who seems very uncomfortable with the fact he's being shown a severed head of a grotesque creature. Like the others, he says he will talk to his captain, taking the head and actually hurrying away unlike the last two they dealt with. Elyza guesses that's a good sign, but then again, he could be hurrying away to get back-up to arrest them.

With still a while until night falls properly, they head back to the tavern, deciding to have a drink to relax for a bit. It's actually rather nice, everyone seems in good enough spirits considering the situation. Even Cornelia seems to be done sulking and laughs at a few stories Cariston tells.

Elyza feels a little out of sorts, still feeling as if she’s on guard duty and can't let herself relax because technically this is still her job. She smiles, joining in the conversation, but out of habit more than anything stays alert to her surroundings.

After about an hour of being in the tavern, many people have come and gone. Several loud rowdy men who the barkeep ends up kicking out are the most interesting bunch. Elyza does notice however, a man who came in not long after them still hasn't moved from his seat. She hadn't paid too much attention to him as it's a city, people come and go all the time, but the fact he hasn't moved to the bar to even get another drink is starting to set off the alarm bells in her head.

She hadn't got a good look at him, in fact she only got a glance at him as he'd lowered his cloak hood as he'd sat down. She's used to watching people, she'd spent a lot of her time as a child hiding and watching people, thinking she was some cool hero from a story who could save the day. That notion of glory faded fast as she got older. Still, the skills she learned still come in useful, even now.

She looks over to the man in question, keeping her gaze to the side of him slightly. What she sees however, is not just some dodgy guy who's trying to pickpocket them. Alenas Torellin sits at the table, a nearly empty glass in front of him. He isn't looking directly at her, more to the side of her. He doesn't meet her eyes, but she knows he's watching her. 

Fuck.

Alenas had been a contact for many years, she'd met him shortly after she first arrived in Pyke. They'd done business together for a long while, He was the closest thing she had to a friend. Although there’s plenty of explanations to why he would be here in this tavern, him watching her is something that doesn't add up. He doesn't need her, has no reason to be following her, yet here he is.

She looks away, trying her hardest to push away the worry she feels in her chest. She doesn't want to confront him in case he really is just here on business and it's a coincidence. She makes a mental note to keep an eye on their surroundings for the next few days to see if he keeps following them.

________________________________________________________________________

With the night upon them, they make a plan. Naliah and Cariston stay in the tavern since they're the ones who need the most rest after their fight earlier. Elyza doesn't think anything will come of waiting in the abandoned house, but goes along with it as she can see it's important to the group. To her surprise, Cornelia volunteers to go as well.

The three of them leave the tavern, letting Naliah and Cariston get some rest and promising they'll be back by sunrise. The walk there is quiet and uneventful, mostly due to them taking the back alley route they followed the spiders through earlier that day. 

Upon approach, Elyza holds out a hand to stop the group, pointing out the lone guard that seems to have been posted outside of the abandoned house. Well, it seems they've taken the threat seriously, more seriously than Elyza expected that's for sure. She didn’t think she'd have to deal with a guard when she agreed to this.

"What do we do?" Cheese asks softly, moving quietly to see if there’s anyway they can sneak around him. They're all quiet, just watching the oblivious guard standing there.

"Wait, you like to sleep with people, right Elyza? That’s a good distraction." 

Elyza just looks at Cheese, then back to the man. She feels herself do a little shiver of disgust at the thought. It's not that the man is particularly bad looking, it's just that he is in fact, a man. "Nope, not like that Cheese."

"What do you mean not like that? Can you have sex other ways?"

"Well, I just dont like- you know what, I'm not getting into this now."

Cornelia is quiet through the whole exchange, just watching the two of them whispering back and forth, before looking back to the guard and taking a step forward. "I've got this."

"Wait, what? Cornelia?" Elyza hisses, trying to get her to come back. But in typical Cornelia fashion, once she’s made her mind up about something, she can't be stopped. Elyza just looks at Cheese, who shrugs and takes her hand, pulling her closer and to a nearby bunch of bushes to hide.

What they see is something Elyza didn’t think she'd ever get to witness. Cornelia walks up to the guard, twirling with her hair while she compliments him and very boldly flirts. It's incredible, and the most unbelievable thing Elyza has seen. Thinking on how Cornelia is, she never thought she'd be able to pull this off. 

Cheese is watching as well, but instead of disbelief on his face, there’s excitement. He's grinning from ear to ear, basically vibrating with joy at this little show. Its only amplified when Cornelia suggests to the guard that they take a stroll together. He seems to agree, snaking his arm around Cornelia's waist as he goes to lead them away. Before he can however, Cheese basically jumps out of their hiding place running up to Cornelia. Elyza just watches the whole thing in horror, seeing a similar look on Cornelia's face.

"Cornelia, are you gonna blow him!?" 

Elyza rests her head in her hands, resisting the urge to scream as she yet again thinks to herself how the hell are these lot smart enough to have ever been at the academy. She hears the guards confused voice telling Cheese to scram and that the adults are talking. Luckily, Cheese is smart enough to not come back to the hiding spot and give Elyza away. Within another few minutes Cornelia and the guard are out of sight and Cheese is quietly calling to Elyza to come out of their wonderful hiding spot.

As soon as she gets next to him he grins, making a comment that Cornelia obviously likes men enough. It takes every ounce of will she has to not just storm off back to the tavern to go the fuck to sleep. 

Instead of lecturing Cheese on how incredibly stupid that was, and to never do that again, she finds herself sighing and nodding at him, watching his shit eating grin get wider. 

Cheese tries to convince Elyza to hide in the rafters with him. She takes one look at the rickety beams and spider webs, and makes a hard pass. She says she'll hide around the back of the house since the guard didn't seem to move at all. Cheese tries to argue if they’re small then it won’t be a problem, but Elyza really has had enough spiders and gross things for today. Cheese just shrugs, climbing up into the rafters and muttering a few words to himself as he seems to cast something. Suddenly, he’s even smaller than before, fitting snugly on the rotting beams, looking completely at home there. Elyza just leaves him to it, taking up her own position around the back of the house and trying not to think about how weird that was.

They wait in their hiding places for about an hour before they hear voices. Sadly, it's only Cornelia and the guard coming back. They hear him ask if she'll come see him again, she makes a non committal comment and seems to leave as quickly as possible. Elyza feels a little stab of guilt, remembering her similar exchange with Miya a few weeks ago. 

They wait for a good six or so hours, Elyza bored out of her mind by the time the sixth hour tolls around. The sun is just about to rise when she notices the guard yawning and walking away. When he's out of sight, Elyza finds Cheese still in the rafters. She stands there for a moment watching him as his little ears droop a bit, before she tells him they need to call it a day. Cheese seems a little upset they didn't find anything, but agrees.

They stick to the alleyways yet again, surprised to find Cornelia waiting for them about 50ft away from the house. They don't talk on the way back to the tavern. No one exactly wants to admit their stake out was a miserable failure.

As they get back to the tavern and head up to their rooms, Cariston sticks his head out of his room, the worry on his face dissipating almost immediately as he rushes out to them. Cheese fills them all in on his watch, which was of course just as boring and uneventful as Elyza and Cornelia’s were. Cariston seems to also share Cheese’s disappointment, but thanks them all for their help.

By the time Elyza finally gets to bed, to say she’s exhausted is an understatement. Cornelia is fast asleep in the bed across from her, she literally seemed to lie down and pass out immediately. Elyza finds herself sighing softly, closing her eyes and hoping tomorrow brings a little less mayhem than today has. Although, knowing who she’s with, it definitely won’t.


	3. Shifting Eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a note on everyone's classes and race:  
> Elyza - Devil tongue tiefling, Hunter conclave Ranger  
> Naliah Silverfire - Dragonborn, Hex blade Warlock  
> Cornelia Swift - Fire genasi, Phoenix sol Sorcerer   
> Cariston Vael - Human, Knowledge domain Cleric  
> Cheese The Mouse - Enlarged mouse (gnome stats basically) Abjuration Wizard

Due to their failed stake out the night before, their start to their second day in Kier is a late one. Elyza awakes to movement in the room. For a moment she panics, completely forgetting where she is and goes to grab her weapons beside her bed. Cornelia just looks at her, looking a bit confused to why there's a half asleep tiefling holding a shortsword vaguely in her direction.

“Where I’m from, you don’t greet people by pointing swords at them.”

Elyza drops her weapon immediately, falling back into bed with a groan of embarrassment. She doesn’t miss the amused smirk Cornelia flashes her before she grabs her bag and goes to leave the room. She stops, her hand on the door handle. Elyza thinks maybe she has something else to say, but then just as quick as Cornelia showed any hesitance, she leaves.

Elyza sits up, rubbing her eyes, wondering what that was all about. She really doesn’t get Cornelia, not at all. One minute she’s being an asshole, talking down to everyone, then the next she’s nice and somewhat down to earth. Elyza has a few guesses to why Cornelia is acting out, but honestly, she doesn’t care enough to really figure it out. She did weird stuff when she was younger and figuring out who she was too. Although, she was never a spoilt brat like Cornelia. 

It doesn’t take her long to get dressed and ready for the day. As she makes her way downstairs, she immediately sees her group sitting at the same table they sat at the evening before. She just stands there for a moment, a soft smile pulling at her lips as she watches Cheese dramatically tell some story. They all look so happy, so content, even with their failure last night. Elyza was sure today they would be solemn and upset about the night before, but apparently, they’re pretty good at springing back.

Cheese notices her, waving her over with a grin. So, she goes over, sitting down in the last empty chair next to Naliah. Naliah doesn’t really acknowledge her presence, looking a bit lost in her own little world. Elyza doesn’t take it personally. She remembers when she used to daydream of grand adventures and of what her life could be. That was a long long time ago now.

She finds herself getting lost in her own thoughts of what she was doing at Naliah’s age. She’d found herself in Pyke at eighteen, scared and alone in a dark place she didn’t know how to escape from. She’d found a merchant that needed help, within a year of working for him she’d made enough gold and contacts to head out on her own. She’d met Alenas around her nineteenth birthday, and he opened her eyes to her true potential. He showed her what he was capable of, what she was capable of, and what they could do together. She could use her wit and her charm to con even the stingiest of people. She had everyone wrapped around her little finger. 

And yet here she is now, seven years later in a tavern, escorting some kids she barely knows. Her life took a turn in a weird direction, but it was for the best. She’s her own person now. She’s in control and can do as she pleases...but yet, she doesn’t know what she wants. As she watches them all happily chatting, discussing what they want to do with the rest of the day, she feels at peace almost. She decides that maybe being here with these colourful idiots really isn’t that bad. 

Cariston really wants to check out the library, Cheese and Naliah also seem interested in that plan. Elyza could care less for books, and especially for libraries. They’re always so stuffy and dull, the quietness always making her feel a little on edge. Cornelia doesn’t give any objections to the plan, but doesn’t look particularly thrilled either. They all head to the library, Cariston going through the materials he’d like to cover, while Cheese does the same. Elyza just ends up tuning them out, preferring to take in her surroundings as they walk. 

When they arrive, Cariston and Cheese seem way too excited to see so many books. Naliah seems interested, but more reserved than the boys, who seem to be basically vibrating with joy. They grab their books, sitting at a table all together. Elyza sits with them, having a look at what they’re reading out of interest, but it's all just a big jumble of words to her. She doesn’t particularly care enough to try to understand any of it.

As the hours pass, Elyza starts to feel like she's going a little bit insane. She had always assumed she was decently patient. Apparently, that patience does not extend to the group wanting to read, and her just sitting there for hours on end. She’s so bored she’s starting to count how many books are on each section of each shelf. She swears quietly to herself as she loses count, deciding that she can’t take this anymore and at least needs some air. As she heads outside, she sees Cornelia standing by the door looking as equally bored. When Cornelia spots her, her eyes light up, striding towards Elyza with urgency.

“Please tell me we’re leaving?”

Elyza just shakes her head, unable to help showing the a smile as Cornelia groans dramatically. “Ugh, I can’t stand it in here anymore! I’m going to get some lunch, coming?”

Elyza thinks she must have misheard because she swears Cornelia, who yesterday basically hated her, has just invited her to lunch. She blinks, watching as Cornelia looks at her, waiting for a response, already half turned away obviously wanting to get going.

“We can’t just leave them here…” Elyza replies quietly, still in shock more than anything. Who is this, and what has she done to Cornelia?

“Of course we can. If they want to be boring and read books, let them. I’m hungry, so let's go.”

Fuck it, why not? Elyza surely can’t be expected to keep an eye on the whole group all of the time. In fact, her keeping an eye on Cornelia is probably the best course of action as, apart from Cheese, she seems to be the most unpredictable one in the group. That’s what she tells herself anyway as she nods and follows Cornelia away from the library.

They walk for about ten minutes or so, making idle chatter, not really talking about anything important. Cornelia is telling some story about being back home in Pyke. It’s strange as she doesn’t talk about Pyke like it's her home. Her tone suggests she merely tolerates the place, but she seems happy when she talks about her father and things they’ve done together. Elyza keeps quiet about her origins, and her time in Pyke. She doesn’t know if she can completely trust Cornelia yet.

Cornelia is telling a story about a maid who had a secret affair with one of the butlers that was exposed at one of her father's grand parties, When Elyza seems to take in her surroundings properly for the first time in a while. She immediately feels uneasy as she notices the quality of buildings and businesses, the people walking past dressed in fancy clothes Elyza could never even dream of being able to afford. It takes everything she has to not just stop and quickly turn around and walk out of the district. Cornelia seems to eventually notice Elyza isn’t replying anymore. She gives her a bit of a strange look, but then shrugs and begins walking over to a small bakery with a few tables and chairs outside. 

Elyza tries to swallow down her uneasiness, not wanting to ruin whatever Cornelia has planned for them. To her surprise, Cornelia buys them both a lunch of many baked goods. Elyza has never seen such a selection. It’s a wonderful sickly sweet feast they share. Elyza only manages a few bites of her first pastry before she feels sick. She takes a few deep breaths, trying to ground herself and repeat her mantra that she’s safe here, no one can hurt her.

Cornelia is mid bite of a particularly sweet fruit tart when she notices Elyza’s discomfort. She looks a bit unsure of what to do, placing her food down before she speaks tentatively. “...Are you...okay?”

Elyza swallows hard, closing her eyes for a moment, feeling slightly better as she nods. “I, uh. I really don’t like all this fancy stuff.”

Elyza opens her eyes to see Cornelia making a face. For a moment, she’s worried Cornelia might make a scene like she did yesterday after their disagreement. But she doesn’t, her lips forming a thin line. “I don’t understand that. I’ve always lived this life, had everything I've ever wanted. The best parties, the most delicious food, the most expensive wine. Everything…” she trails off, her eyes on the table in front of her. “When father sent me away from our home to the academy, I didn’t think I'd ever get to see anything like this again.”

Elyza doesn’t know what to say. Cornelia has been so stuck up and uptight since they met, this is so unlike her. She’s honestly considering running back to the library and telling the rest of the group there’s something very wrong with Cornelia, before she realises how ridiculous that would be. 

Cornelia has a look on her face Elyza can’t read when their eyes meet again. She panics for a moment, knowing she has to say something. “I get that. I’ve never had a...a good life.” Elyza admits, choosing her words very carefully. “Areas like this, where the rich live and abuse their power, have always made me uncomfortable. But, it isn’t that bad. I don’t mind being here if it makes you feel more at home.”

Cornelia seems genuinely surprised at Elyza’s admission. She finishes off her treats, Elyza mirroring her as she feels actually hungry now the panic seems to have subsided. They eat in a comfortable silence, Elyza feeling she has a new understanding of Cornelia. Yeah, she can be a bitch, and really insensitive, but she’s just a young woman trying to figure out where she belongs in the world. Cornelia may be five years younger than Elyza, but Elyza definitely feels she can relate to Cornelia on some level with all of this. 

They spend the rest of the day shopping, Elyza still feeling a little uneasy about her surroundings, but she gets over it. They mostly window shop, Cornelia never seeming to run out of outrageous stories. She'd always heard rich kids had the wildest stories, but she’d never gotten to test that theory until now. Cornelia takes her to many boutiques and tailors, pointing out fabric and designs she’s always wanted. 

Elyza realises, as Cornelia seems to be walking with confidence in where she’s going, that she must have been here before. The group did lose her for a good three or so hours the other day when they were all out. Her running off to be here does make more sense than Cheese's theory that she’d gone for a nap somewhere. Although, knowing Cornelia and how unpredictable she is, either could have been right.

As they’re being shown a very expensive silk that Elyza is a little bit scared to touch, Cornelia talks about her father getting her an expensive dress for her fifteenth birthday, but it was in the wrong colour, and made of the wrong material. She talks about it like he should have known what she’d wanted, she’d told him a million times. Elyza begins to wonder if maybe Cornelia’s life isn’t quite as perfect as the picture she’s painted of it.

As they start to make their way back towards the trade district, Elyza notices a shop where she’s more used to being. Cornelia gives her a bit of a strange look when Elyza lightly touches her arm, steering her in the direction of the shop. That's probably because during their whole day together, Elyza has not suggested a single place to go to, she’s just let Cornelia drag her around for the day.

As they enter, Cornelia sees a very prominent display of long rounded objects, leather straps attached at the base, and blushes practically scarlet. It looks hilarious considering how cool and collected she usually is. Elyza just smirks, watching as Cornelia makes some flustered comment about not needing anything like that before quickly hurrying out of the building and heading in the wrong direction. Elyza grins triumphantly to herself before hurrying after Cornelia so she doesn’t get lost. It turns out her sense of direction is even worse than her temper. Cornelia walks firmly in front of her at a brisk pace, still in a huge huff with Elyza for taking her to a sex shop. Elyza still thinks it's hilarious.

They meet up with the rest of the group back at the tavern. Cheese excitedly fills them in on all the ‘cool research’ they missed out on. Elyza shoots Cornelia a look, who rolls her eyes dramatically back at her. Elyza does feel the tiniest bit bad for having a day where she left half the group to potentially get in trouble. But honestly, she feels she kind of needed it. She had, dare she say it, fun with Cornelia today. Maybe she isn’t so bad, underneath all the hot headedness that is. She is still without a doubt, a spoiled brat. But, she isn’t nearly as bad as Elyza had originally thought.

_________________________________________________________________________

Over the next few days, Cornelia seems to drift away again, keeping the group at arm’s length at all times. Elyza has caught her a few times sitting at the desk in their room, writing letters when she thinks Elyza is already asleep. Elyza has meant to ask her what’s going on, but every time she goes to, something happens. Or Cornelia gets pissed off, and Elyza does not want to make her temper tantrums any worse. So she spends time with the others, watching Naliah come out of her shell a little by little as she talks a bit more, once even trying to explain how she summons her sword, but of course Elyza has no clue what she’s on about. As far as she's concerned, it's just weird magic and she makes swords appear when she clicks her fingers. It’s kinda cool, Elyza has to admit, but not something Elyza practically wants to be able to do even if she could. She has her bow, and her shortswords at their hips if push comes to shove. 

She spends a day with Cheese, who finally traps her and forces her to meet his family. She has to say hi to so many mice that she can’t keep track of them all, and her head starts to hurt after the 20th mouse she’s introduced to. He explains about the book Cariston loaned him to read, and why it's such a cool and special edition. He says he’s currently researching life spans of different creatures so he can see if there's a way to live longer. He says he’ll die within the next year, so he needs to hurry up with his studies. Elyza feels her heart sink a little as she watches his face drop, lost in thought for a moment, before he bounces back and starts talking about something else. She never thought of his lifespan, that he didn’t have as many years to live like the rest of them do. But then again, she’s never thought of how long mice live. 

Her time with Cariston is interesting. Like Cheese, he talks a lot about books and what he’s reading, but he also has stories. Stories of legends and creatures not seen for thousands of years. He speaks of dragons, of beasts with incredible power. Of old tribes who died out, and others who potentially still exist somewhere. He tells her of his newest discovery with all his time he’s been spending at the library. He’s discovered a tribe that were called the pyx, which had some sort of association with Ioun. She smiles politely as he rattles off more and more information and theories about them, even showing her a picture of their apparent symbol. She has to remind him she’s just a mercenary guard, the furthest thing from a scholar. He doesn’t seem to care, he seems just happy to be able to talk and air out his ideas. It’s cute, in a nerdy kind of way, she decides.

In the few days that have passed, they haven't seen Trizzi at all. Which is why when Elyza comes downstairs for breakfast and see’s Trizzi eating with the others, she basically runs over to the table, grabbing the chair beside Trizzi with lightning speed. She smiles, exchanging greetings with her, suddenly feeling a bit nervous with being so close to her now. Which she knows is ridiculous, it's just Trizzi.

“Well, I hope you’re all enjoying yourselves here.” She says in her cute voice, her accent making each syllable sound more and more adorable. “I have more work to do for the academy today, but I found the most wonderful shop the other day that you may find interesting. It’s called The Arcane Anvil. It’s- Oh, let me think.”

She gives directions to this shop, speaking excitedly about magic items and the owner being a lovely pleasant elven woman who’s just as enthusiastic about magic as Trizzi is. Her eyes sparkle wonderfully in the morning light, her voice carrying through the whole tavern. Elyza doesn’t realize she’s staring, a goofy smile on her face, until she hears Trizzi’s voice calling her name with slight concern, asking if she’s okay.

A small blush covers Elyza’s cheeks as she straightens up, telling Trizzi that she's fine, she just isn’t fully awake yet. She hears Naliah snicker a few places to her left. She thinks of telling her to shut up, to tell them all to stop giving her that knowing look every single one of them has on their faces. But she doesn’t, she just sits there, trying her best to look normal as she listens to Trizzi talk about some kind of magic something with Cariston. She isn’t really listening, she’s far too embarrassed from making a fool of herself in front of the group.

After breakfast, the group head out for the day. Cariston suggests they visit the place Trizzi mentioned, saying he’s never really come across magic items and would love to check them out. Elyza doesn't have any complaints, it's been a few days since they all had a proper shopping trip together, so she’s fine with it. She doesn’t have anything she needs to do, so she’s perfectly happy being led around town by these crazy bookworms. 

They find The Arcane Anvil quickly enough. It looks like any other boring building from the outside. There’s a sign hanging above the door with an avail being struck by a hammer, bright shimmers of magic glittering from it. Elyza doesn’t have high hopes for this being a particularly exciting day, that is until she walks into the building. It’s a rather small interior, display stands with cloaks and other items placed around the room, a counter straight ahead, with a beautiful elven woman with long blue hair standing behind it. The rest of the group split up looking around the room at the display cases, making comments and observations that fall on deaf ears, as Elyza just stares ahead. She blinks, snapping herself out of her little daze and decides to get to work. No way is she going to pass up the opportunity to get a bit of flirting done at least with this woman.

“Oh hello, can I help you?” She asks with a smile, closing the book she’s reading as Elyza approaches the counter. 

“I’m just here with my friends having a look.” Elyza says, gesturing over her shoulder to where she can hear Cariston and Cheese excitedly discussing something about a cloak that billows? “I just wanted to compliment you on how wonderful the place looks, it's a lovely design.”

“Why thank you, it isn’t often I get compliments like that.”

“Really? The people around here must be dull then. You’re such a beautiful woman after all.” Elyza says, giving her signature smile, leaning on the counter.

“Oh, I’m flattered.” She says, smiling still, but making a very big gesture of showing off the gold wedding band on her left hand. Elyza clocks it immediately, disappointment sweeping over her as she straightens up, flirty smile wiped off her face. Well, she can’t have them all.

She notices the rest of the group gravitating towards the counter and decides this is her chance at salvaging this failed attempt of a conversation. “My name’s Elyza, we’re looking to see if you have anything that can help us? A friend recommended we check this place out.”

“Trissaleth, pleased to meet you.” She says curtly, turning her attention to the rest of the group. “Is there anything you’re looking for in particular?”

“Not really, I see you have a lot of cloaks of billowing, they’re so cool.” Cheese says, a look of amazement on his face.

A frown tugs at Trissaleth’s lips before she replies. “Ah yes, nobles love cloaks that make them feel important. I make things with much more power, yet no one wants them.”

“We’re definitely interested in powerful items.” Cariston pipes up. She looks surprised for a moment, which isn’t a surprise since they look like just a bunch of kids, Cheese looking like a five year old boy, definitely not helping their cause.

She turns away, a smile on her face as she starts to rummage around the shelves behind the counter. She pulls out several items, showing them to the party. Elyza doesn’t really understand what many of them do, even as Trissaleth explains it. Cariston is the first to buy something, very excitedly at that. He ends up purchasing something that looks like just a normal ruby with some weird symbols on to Elyza, but Cariston has the biggest smile on his face when Trissaleth hands it over to him. She explains if he attaches it to his weapon, he can cast spells and use his dagger at the same time.

Cheese spends every last coin he has buying ink and paper. He even ends up buying a…a hat? Apparently, it's a magic hat. It does look rather cute on him, so it must be worth it. Naliah buys a large pearl which apparently will help her cast more spells if she needs it. While Elyza is deciding if she wants to buy anything, Cornelia steps forward, speaking for the first time since they’ve entered the shop.

“Do you have anything to do with fire?”

Trissaleth seems to think for a moment, crouching down and looking under the counter. When she resurfaces, she has a piece of paper with some sort of diagram on it. “I think this will interest you.” She explains it's a Circlet of blasting, which casts one of Cornelia’s favourite spells. It's something she’s been working on, but it will take a few days to make so they’ll have to wait for it. Everyone can see Cornelia’s excitement about it, which is why when she looks into her coin purse and frowns, Cariston steps up next to her.

“Do you need to borrow some gold? I have enough to cover it. You can pay me back later when you have it.” 

Cornelia looks genuinely surprised. “You’d do that for me?”

“Of course, that’s what friends are for.” he says with a warm smile.

Cornelia seems conflicted, but takes the gold he’s offering and buys the circlet. She mumbles something about them not getting the wrong idea and that they’re not friends, but Cariston doesn’t seem too upset by it. He's probably used to Cornelia just being Cornelia by now. 

Elyza finally picks something to buy, choosing a fancy looking quiver which apparently can hold up to sixty arrows in just one of the three compartments. Trissaleth mentions that Elyza can basically just use it to store all her weapons if she wishes. Although she doesn't mind having her shortswords strapped at her hips, the idea of having them stored to her side, and what could be basically a never ending supply of arrows, sounds too good to pass up. 

Trissaleth also shows off some sending stones she’s made, saying that she can easily make a set of five of them for the group. Elyza immediately loves the idea, mostly because although they usually stick together, when one of them does wander off, it can be a nightmare trying to find them again. Basically, sending stones makes it impossible to lose Cornelia, even with her bad sense of direction.

“You enchant things, right?” Naliah asks, Trissaleth nodding. “Would you be able to enchant and inscribe something on my shield?” Naliah holds out the shield as she speaks, Trissaleth running her fingers over it, inspecting it carefully.

“I can definitely enchant it, for a price. The other thing, hmm.” She pauses, thinking for a moment. “Jo, can you come out here?”

There’s some banging and noise coming from a room off to the side of the shop. Elyza expects some guy to appear, the blacksmith who's made the weapons Trissaleth has been enchanting. What she doesn’t expect is a large muscular human woman to step into the shop, smiling sweetly as she spots the group. “Oh, hello there! I didn’t know we had such a big group of customers.” she says, casually winding her arm around Trissaleth’s waist which in response gets the most gentle and genuine smile from Trissaleth.

“Oh nice shield. Wait, sorry! Where are my manners today? I’m Joanna.” 

Elyza just can’t stop staring at them. Trissaleth’s slim form compared to Joanna’s broad shoulders sure is something. Elyza realises that yeah, she’s into Trissaleth, but she’s also really into Joanna. She’s never been with two women at once before, not through lack of trying of course. She can’t help but imagine what that would be like. She watches them, their peaceful smiles and looks of adoration for each other putting a stop to her fantasies. They’re happy, she should probably back off, even though she desperately wants to flirt with both of them now.

Joanna seems more than happy to fill Naliah’s request, getting her to describe the design she wants and excitedly suggesting colours. Trissaleth reminds them again it will be a few days before they can pick up the items, which the group don’t particularly seem to care about.

After they’re done in The Arcane Anvil, Cornelia requests they visit the post master as she has a letter to send. The group agree, Cariston yet again trying to get across his message that friends help friends out. Cornelia just rolls her eyes, walking ahead of them all. Cheese and Cariston are chatting excitedly about their new magic items. Naliah is walking beside Elyza, but doesn't talk to her. Elyza is fine with that, she likes to have the security of someone else there while she keeps her eyes on her surroundings. For the last few days, she swears she’s seen someone out of the corner of her eye. Flashes of blonde hair, but when she looks there’s been nothing there.

She’s finally starting to let her guard down slightly, when she sees it again, the blonde out of the corner of her eye, staying just out of her sight. This time, she turns her head immediately. She catches a glance of Alenas pale face with a look of concentration as he keeps his eyes on her.

He is following her, fuck.

She yet again tries to think of a reasonable explanation as to why he would be following her, but all she can come up with is that he wants her help with something. He always was a bit of a weird one and liked to check out the people he did business with.

They’d first met when he’d followed her down an alleyway in Pyke. She’d placed a knife to his throat, asking what he wanted. He’d just smiled at her, telling her he knew she was something special. He said he’d been watching her for weeks, seeing how she interacted with people, sweet and innocent to their faces then fucking them over once their back was turned. He could unlock her full potential, help her become someone people wouldn’t want to cross. The idea of that power, of feeling untouchable made her agree to work with him. She wanted to be strong, strong enough that if he did find her, she would be ready.

She tries to keep her eye on him, making sure he definitely is following and it really isn’t an unlucky coincidence. He stays back, not seeming to notice she’s noticed him, still following the group. She doesn’t know what to do. She can’t confront him now, not in front of everyone in the street. She thinks of telling Naliah, but Naliah, like the rest of them, is too unpredictable. She might just run him through with a sword, which is something that sounds tempting, but yet again, they’re in public and she doesn’t know his intentions. 

She decides, after thinking it over for a good few minutes, the best course of action is to ignore him just now and hope he slips up. She can corner him and get the answers she wants if she sees him follow her to the tavern again. For now, she can leave it. She can trust him to a certain degree. After all, he doesn’t know anything about who she really is. He isn’t a real threat to her

When they arrive at the post master, Cornelia hurries to the counter, loudly announcing she has a letter of great importance to send. The rest of the group hang back by the door, letting Cornelia do her business here. Elyza does wonder if she should send a letter while she’s here, but who would she even send a letter to? Miya’s face looking at her in awe from their last night they spent together flashes through her mind. Her big beautiful blue eyes, her long brown hair and the way it perfectly shaped her face. Elyza didn’t even tell her she was leaving, did she? She should really send a letter to Miya, just to explain where she went. She’s only been gone about a week at most, it wouldn’t be too late. But, she doesn’t need to send a letter. She doesn’t owe Miya anything.

“I need to send this letter to my father.” 

“Yeah, great.” the very bored man behind the counter says, grabbing the open ledger and looking at it rather than her. “And who would your father be exactly?”

Cornelia stops, looking back at the group and then leans in closer, lowering her voice. That catches Elyza’s attention immediately. Why does Cornelia want to keep it a secret who her father is? She talks about him enough, and always has a story about some great party he’s held. Out of habit, more than anything, Elyza finds herself taking a few steps forward, listening closely.

“My father, you should know him, he’s very famous.”

“Uh huh.” He replies, looking up at her, looking just as bored as before.

“Lord McShelf of Pyke, I’m his daughter, Cornelia McShelf.” She says, obviously expecting him to react in awe. He just blinks at her and asks how she’d like to send it.

Elyza can’t help but smirk hearing who Cornelia’s father is. Lord McShelf. Of course, Cornelia’s whole attitude makes much more sense now. Elyza had done some work for the McShelfs during her time in Pyke, nothing too fancy or illegal for that matter, just transporting some materials of great value. They’re a rich family yes, but by Pyke standards, they are pretty low down, not by any means important. Cornelia is trying to big herself up, make it sound like she comes from more money than she actually does. 

As Cornelia turns to leave, Elyza tries to act natural, like she hasn’t just found out Cornelia’s biggest secret. She smiles at her, Cornelia just frowning at her as she walks right past the group and out the door. They all follow, Cheese asking her if she writes to her father often. Cornelia deflects the question expertly, saying she’s tired and wants to head back to the tavern. 

Well, Elyza certainly didn’t expect to find Lord McShelf’s one and only daughter to be in her company, or for that daughter to be using a fake surname of Swift.

_________________________________________________________________________

Their seventh day in Kier starts like any other. They meet downstairs for breakfast, Naliah eating her usual stack of meat she’s become accustomed to. Elyza was a little weirded out when Naliah first asked for it for breakfast, but now she’s used to it. As usual, they discuss their plans for the day throughout breakfast. 

Cariston and Cheese both want to head back to the library, Naliah enthusiastically agreeing the library is a cool place. Cornelia shoots Elyza a look, which she knows by now means ‘time to ditch the losers and go shopping.’ which she would 100% agree with, if any of them had any gold to their name. Elyza isn’t stupid, she of course has some gold, but not a lot, and she’s keeping it for when she needs it. They’re in desperate need of a side job to earn some. Plus, Elyza really misses fighting bad guys. It’s been six days since their big fight with the hag. She didn’t think she'd be too bothered, but she really misses shooting things.

They decide to stop by The Arcane Anvil first to pick up their items, as it’s been three days since their last visit. Elyza walks in, expecting to see Trissaleth at the counter, but instead Joanna is stood there. She grins as they come in, already reaching under the counter to retrieve their items. At this point, Elyza is just happy to see a woman who isn’t Naliah or Cornelia, and has to stop herself from running over to the counter to talk to her.

“Hello again! I think this is everything you guys ordered.” She says, looking over the sending stones, the circlet of blasting, and of course, Naliah’s shield which now looks pretty cool with some sort of symbol that sort of reminds Elyza of a flower on it. 

Everyone picks up the items excitedly, Cornelia looking like she’s a little bit in love with her new headpiece. She tilts it in her hands and watches as the red gem in the centre catches and sparkles in the light. Naliah seems as equally impressed with her shield, tracing her fingers over the indents of the pattern. Cariston makes sure they all have a sending stone and goes over how they work, Joanna grinning as he does, and saying she’s glad he knows because she hates explaining it over and over again.

“Soooo, got anything new in?” Elyza asks, once again taking up her signature flirty smile as although she knows she shouldn't flirt, it’s just for fun.

“Oh, actually yes, we do. After you came in last time, I made something for you.”

“Oh really, for me? That’s so thoughtful.” She says, leaning into the counter slightly, keeping her eyes on Joanna’s. “What is it?”

Joanna turns towards the shelves, seeming to look for a moment before she makes a sound of triumph and turns back towards Elyza, holding an interesting looking arrow with a longer arrow head than she’s used to seeing, grooves carved into it. Elyza looks at it curiously before meeting Joanna’s eyes again.

Joanna smiles wide, holding it out so Elyza can get a better look. “I call them arrows of the wind. When you let them fly, they make this cool humming noise. Oh, and they’re enchanted!”

Elyza didn’t expect to fall in love with anything today, but the arrows and Joanna are proving her wrong on that front. “It’s beautiful, I can’t believe you made this.”

“Aw, thanks! I mean Trissaleth is the one who did the enchanting, so that’s the bit that makes them special.” Joanna says, rubbing the back of her neck shyly.

“You’re both very talented women, I’m envious.” Elyza says, watching in delight as she sees a small blush rise to Joanna’s cheeks. Sadly, due to their money situation, or lack off, she can’t afford to buy the arrows just now. As they leave, Joanna waves to them, saying she’s excited to see them again. Elyza doesn’t think she’s ever met someone as strong as Joanna, but also so soft and sweet. It’s a strange mix, and Elyza realises she’s also looking forward to going back to see her. 

After their little detour to get their items, they happily make their way towards their destination for the day. As they’re approaching the library, they spot a town crier in the distance, ringing his bell to get the public's attention before speaking. 

“Iron shortages continue as there is still no word from the dwarves of Dul-strom. Empires efforts to expand mining have met a standstill. Citizens are asked to ration their use of iron and steel.

Aggression from the wilds rises. All citizens are advised to hire extra guards while traveling.

Citizens are warned to take extra care when visiting the storerooms of the trade district. Disappearances have increased in the area. The public are asked to only travel there if necessary while the guard investigates.”

Elyza shoots a look at Naliah who also seems to have perked up at the news. They share a look, Elyza can tell by the sparkle in Naliah’s eye that she feels just as restless as Elyza does. Cariston, being the good guy he is, and maybe because he also misses casting spells at things, asks them if they want to check out the disappearances. Elyza and Naliah seem to agree a bit too enthusiastically compared to the rest of the group.

With their plans of going to the library completely forgotten, Cornelia seems happy enough. Or if she is unhappy, she doesn’t seem to have any objection to getting the chance to throw fire in someone's face. They yet again very easily find a guard who seems a bit flustered with the idea of them helping out. He advises they speak to the lieutenant who is in charge of the investigation. He says to check near the storehouses, that’s where they’re most likely to find Vauldrin.

The storehouses are a lot harder to find. Cornelia decides that she wants to lead the way as she never gets to lead them places. Cariston, who naturally seems to have fallen into the role of their leader, has no objections to this. Well, that is until they’ve been walking for twenty minutes, and Cheese points they’ve just walked in a big circle. Cariston calms the group, reassuring them no one is at fault, especially not Cornelia.

They eventually find their way there, the whole group managing to stop Cornelia from making wrong turns. By the time they arrive, she’s acting like she’s the smartest person alive and got them there all on her own. No one has the heart to tell her she quite possibly has the worst sense of direction in the world. As Cornelia’s still boasting about how great she is, they hear a man’s voice shouting for civilians to keep moving and stay away from the storehouses.

Elyza realises he must be the lieutenant simply by how he’s acting. He’s loud, and has confidence which makes him seem important. Yeah, that’s got to be him. She points him out, Cheese coming to the same conclusion as her, which he announces loudly. 

“He must be in charge, he’s loud and full of himself.”

The man in question looks over to them, Elyza realising with absolute horror he’s just heard what Cheese said. She kind of wants to forget about the whole thing to save herself the embarrassment. Sadly, she also really wants to shoot something. 

Cariston leads them over, smiling at this Vauldrin guy with some attempt to seem like a nice reputable guy, even though Cheese has already insulted the poor man. He watches them cautiously as they approach. The civilian he’s talking with takes one look at the party and decides they better get moving.

“Yes?” Vauldrin asks, sounding exasperated already.

“Hi, my name’s Cariston and these are my friends.” Cariston begins, gesturing to the rest of the group. Cheese waves at the man, receiving nothing short of a glare in return. “We heard about the problem with the disappearances, and were wondering if you needed any help?”

“You want to help?” Vauldrin asks, looking over the group with an eyebrow raised.

“Yeah, we’re very reliable.” Cheese says matter of factly.

He still doesn’t seem convinced, but after Cheese staring him down happily for a few seconds he sighs and looks away. “Fine. Yes, we could use the help. Over the last few days, people have been disappearing around this area. We’ve been trying to keep people away, but it doesn’t seem to be helping exactly.”

“If it's around here, It can’t be too hard to find.” Cariston says, obviously thinking out loud as he begins to look around at their surroundings. He is right, although there are a lot of buildings, it really shouldn’t be hard to find. Especially since Elyza has spent a hell of a lot of years tracking people and creatures in cities just like this.

“If you can help, then sure. Knock yourselves out. Better you lot than my men.” Vauldrin says, waving his hand dismissively at the group as he sees another civilian coming over to talk to him. They leave him alone, figuring out the angry civilian complaining that he can’t get into his storage is enough of a punishment for being so rude.

And so begins the search for...whatever they’re looking for. Creatures? Kidnappers? Something or someone taking people? They decide the best way to go about this is just to check the general area people were last seen and go from there. So they walk, and walk, and then walk some more until they’ve done a full sweep of the area. Elyza is about to admit maybe this will be a little bit harder than she first thought when she sees it.

Hidden in the shadows of an alleyway, she sees a splattering of blood. “Guys, over there.” she says softly, not wanting to raise her voice in case whatever is doing this is nearby. They carefully make their way over, Elyza leading them further into the dark alleyway, her eyes trained on the ground looking for a trail. Sadly, there isn’t a trail past the splatter and then a few drops heading further in. 

Cheese suddenly stops where he is behind her, screwing up his face. “Ew, do you smell that?”

“What?” Elyza replies, turning to look at him, not smelling anything out of the ordinary to say they’re in a city.

“It’s…” His eyes widen as he pushes past her, stopping as he gets the one of the more secluded storehouses. Elyza smells it then as well, the overwhelming scent of blood and decay coming from within. If the guards couldn’t find this, they’re complete idiots.

“Well, this could be promising.” she says, her hand on the door handle as she turns back to the party. They all look a bit on edge, Cariston giving her a nod when she pushes down the handle and the door opens. Nothing happens. There’s a stillness, a quietness which is somehow even more unnerving.

They all slowly make their way inside, Naliah now leading the group with her sword already out and ready. It doesn’t take them long before they see the pile of bloody corpses creating the horrible smell. Elyza shoots a glance at Cariston who looks absolutely horrified by what he sees. She sees Cornelia shudder in disgust beside her, Cheese having a similar reaction. Naliah seems to be the only one who doesn’t look too freaked out about this. She just looks...angry.

Suddenly, a large creature lands with a thud in front of them, everyone jumping back on instinct alone. As it stands to its full height, it unfurls its long tail from around itself, the end spiked and dripping with some sort of green liquid. Elyza immediately grabs her bow, aiming at the strange goat like creature, right between its glowing yellow eyes. 

“What the hell is that?” Cornelia asks, flames flicking at her fingertips as she lifts her hand, ready to burn this thing.

“No clue, but I think it would look better dead!” Elyza says, letting an arrow loose, already reaching for another before seeing if her first hit. That’s when they hear another thud behind them, Cariston turning around immediately to meet another of the same creature's terrifying gaze.

“Looks like we’re fighting our way out.”  
_________________________________________________________________________

Elyza should feel joy as she watches the last horned creature crumble to the ground, but all she feels is disgust. Stillness finally falls over the room, Elyza looking up at the rafters of the room to thankfully see no more monsters hiding up there. Cariston holds his arm, blood dripping slowly from the wound one of the creature's tails caused when he’d charged in to distract it from going after Cheese. Elyza makes her way over to him, the others doing the same.

“Are you okay, Cariston?” Cheese asks softly. Cariston smiles, wincing a little as he takes his hand away to survey the damage. The wound doesn’t look too deep, definitely something that can easily be healed by magic. As if reading her mind, Cariston closes his eyes for a second, his hands beginning to glow with a pale white light. The wound begins to close slowly, but Elyza turns away before she can watch it fully heal. 

Naliah follows Elyza over to the first creature they killed, crouched down next to her as she tries to see if it has anything on it, or if she can figure out what the hell it is. She guesses it's some sort of demon, it certainly matches the description with its weird body and tail. Upon searching both the bodies they find a decent amount of gold and some gems. Naliah seems to just be staring at the shimmering gems, her eyes wide as a large grin spreads across her face. 

Elyza watches her, remembering on their first day when she’d had a similar look on her face as she’d looked down the alleyway. Her stomach sinks, a wave of uneasiness washing over her. “...Naliah?”

Naliah seems to snap out of it, looking up from the sparkling gems in her hands. It takes her a moment to catch up on what’s going on as she looks away sheepishly. “I, uh. I really like gems.”

“You like...gems?”

“Don’t you? They’re just so sparkly and cool!”

Elyza just looks at her, a smile pulling at her lips as Naliah moves the gems around, eyes getting bigger as the light reflects off of them. Elyza has never met another weird lizard person like Naliah before. She wonders if they all go weirdly feral for gems, or if that's just another one of Naliah’s weird traits.

After everyone has collected themselves and Cariston has made sure no one is literally on the brink of death, they leave the storehouse, heading back towards where they last saw Vauldrin. He sees them coming, noticing the scrapes and blood on their clothing, and raises an eyebrow. 

“I assume that’s it taken care of then? Not bad work for a lizard and a demon kin.”

Elyza just smiles sweetly at him, confirming that yes that is it taken care off, ignoring what he’s just called her. The first time someone called her something like that, she’d been upset. Worried that people really did just see her as some sort of demon. She has the horns and tail like the demons that she's seen in her time, so it's no wonder some humans think she’s like them. 

Vauldrin still doesn’t seem too happy with them, but thanks them begrudgingly. He asks where they’re staying, saying he’ll have a reward brought to them in the next day or so.

_________________________________________________________________________

They spend the evening celebrating in the tavern, everyone but Cheese having a drink, he prefers to drink milk instead. Which works out honestly, because Elyza sure as hell doesn’t want people seeing her give what looks like a child a pint of ale. Elyza is laughing at another of Cornelia’s ridiculous stories when she looks to her left by chance, spotting a familiar face watching her again. She stops immediately, looking away. 

She just stares at the table, deciding what the hell to do about Alenas. He’s been following her for nearly an entire week now, she needs to do something. Even if his intentions are good, she doesn’t like to be watched, he knows that.

“Elyza, you okay?” Cariston asks softly, the rest of the group stopping their conversations to look at her. Well, it’s now or never.

“That guy over there.” she says, slightly moving her head in his direction. They all, like idiots, turn to look. “You guys are so not subtle…” she murmurs. “He’s been following me since we got here.”

“What? Do you know him?” Naliah asks, a strange expression crossing her face.

“He’s…” she has to choose her words carefully. “Someone I used to know. I need to talk to him.”

Cheese looks confused, but nods. “Okay, we have your back.”

That stops her in her tracks. She looks at the group, Cheese and Cariston smiling at her saying they’ll help however they can. Naliah offering to use her sword if he turns out to be a pain. Cornelia making some offhand comment about how it would be a pain if he were to do something to her and she didn’t have anyone to go shopping with.

They care, they all care about her.

It renders her speechless for a moment, the crushing fear in her chest somehow feeling worse now. She’s not used to having people she can rely on. Sure, she had a few people in Pyke who she could turn to if she needed it, but they would never help without getting something they wanted out of it. These guys though, she’s known them for no more than a month, she’s only been travelling with them for over a week, and yet they’re ready to lay down their lives to protect her. She should be happy, but instead she feels even more scared. She’s just bringing more innocent lives into her mess.

She stands up, finishing off her drink to give her some sort of confidence boost. “If I’m not back in five minutes, come find me.” She turns away from the table before she can see any of their reactions.

Alenas looks surprised as she approaches his table. He quickly tries to mask his surprise, giving her his signature smile. If she didn’t know him, she’d say he looks happy to see her. But she knows better, everything about him is fake. “Oh, hi Elyza. Fancy seeing you here.”

She feels her eye twitch slightly, but tries to keep her cool, smiling back at him like this is just some nice fun reunion and not a warning for him to leave her the hell alone. “Yeah, it's been a while. Wanna take a walk and have a catch up?”

He makes the mistake of looking over her shoulder at what she knows is the table with her friends at. Bastard, he can still read her too well. After seeming satisfied that none of them seem to be looking over, he stands up, agreeing to talk outside. She leads him out of the tavern and around the side. She wants to stay away from prying eyes for many reasons, mostly in case this turns bad, and she has to do something she doesn’t want to.

“So, this is where you’ve been hiding, huh?” He asks her, his soft smile turning into a smirk. She knows he’s teasing, but his words still make her feel on edge.

“I’ve not been hiding, just doing bigger and better things.”

“Travelling with a couple of weird kids is better? You were good at what you did. What we did.”

“Yeah, I guess.” She says, trying to sound like she doesn’t care. “You’re awfully far away from Pyke yourself.” She meets his eyes. “Why are you here?”

He doesn’t miss a beat, doesn’t even hesitate. “Just some business, you know how it is.”

“Really, it must be someone important.” she says casually, keeping her eyes on his. He narrows his eyes slightly, reading her perfectly as usual. He’d taught her the art of being able to say a million things in very little words. The weight of what their words really mean don’t go unnoticed.

The smirk is back on his face, but somehow, it’s different, more sinister. “Oh yeah. Just doing a bit of smuggling for the Montroose family. You’ve heard of them, right?”

Elyza feels her eyes widen, feeling a stab of fear in her chest at the name alone. He can’t know, he just can’t. It isn’t possible, there’s no way he could know. She tells herself to calm the hell down, to not react. He must know something and is trying to get a reaction out of her. She won’t give him it.

“Sounds like a good deal, never worked with them.” She says, trying her hardest to keep the nervousness and fear out of her voice. He looks at her, his eye twitching slightly as he tries to figure out what she means. She just keeps smiling, not letting her facade slip.

She hears her friends approach before she sees them. They really aren’t the best at being stealthy or subtle. Luckily, that’s just what she needs right now. As they all appear, Cheese makes a big deal of not knowing where she went and so they all had to come find her. He does a great job of completely blanking Alenas, which he absolutely hates. He’s always loved to be the centre of attention, the important one.

“Who’s your friend, Elyza?” Cheese asks curiously, Elyza giving him a grin before she turns back to look at Alenas. “Oh, this is-”

“-Alenas Torrellin, charmed.” He says, flashing them all his signature charming smile, obviously expecting it to work. Elyza watches in absolute delight as Cornelia and Naliah just stare blankly at him. He coughs awkwardly, averting his eyes from their gaze, definitely not used to not being able to use his charm to get through every situation.

“I should really get going, business to do and all that.”

Elyza studies him, trying to figure out exactly what he’s trying to do here. He follows her for days on end, mentions that name to her. She doesn’t get it. The only thing she can come up with is he’s somehow figured out who she was, who she really is. She doesn’t like him holding that power over her, but there’s not much she can do.

“Yeah. It’s been nice catching up.” she says, her fake smile matching his as he bids her goodbye and goes to leave. She should kill him. Her secret would be safe then, there's no way he could ever find her again if no one knows who she really is. But....killing him means being just as bad as the man she’s trying not to become. 

She watches as he leaves, the rest of the group coming to stand next to her, watching long after he’s disappeared. Elyza feels the blood draining from her face as she realises she might have just made the biggest mistake of her life. She figured out Alenas would eventually figure out who she really is, he’s a smart and manipulative man after all. It didn’t even cross her mind that he would betray her. What if he wasn't lying about working for the Montroose family? What if he’s working for them to gather information on where she is.

Fuck.

She flinches as she feels something tug on her sleeve. She looks down to see cheese looking up at her, eyes filled with curiosity. “Are you okay? What do you want to do with him?”

She just stares at him for a moment, realising she must look terrified. She takes a shaky breath, clenching her fist tightly in frustration at herself for being so fucking stupid.

“He’s...He’s a bad man. We need to stay away from him.”

“If he’s causing you trouble, we could always…” Naliah says, it obvious what she means by the fact she already has her sword summoned in her hand.

“No. No, I’m okay. He should stay away now.” She says, hoping that her intuition isn’t right for once. “Come on, let's get back inside before someone steals our table.”


	4. The Absent Elf

“Cariston?”

Elyza is only half paying attention to the conversation at breakfast the next day. No more than ten minutes earlier, a rather confused looking guard had come in to give ‘The colourful group from yesterday’ a reward for taking care of the weird demons in the storehouses. It wasn’t a lot of money, Elyza has definitely had a hell of a lot more, but it's enough that she can eat her breakfast in peace and not have to worry about finding some other side jobs so they don’t starve or something.

“Yeah Cheese?” Cariston asks, setting his mug down as he looks at Cheese in his usual five-year-old child disguise. It’s still kind of weird, but they're all getting used to it now.

“What’s cunnalingus?” 

Time seems to stop as everyone’s head perks up at the sound of Cheese’s tiny voice saying that word. Cornelia grins, raising her hand to high five Cheese, while Naliah looks really confused. Elyza gives Cariston a horrified look which he mirrors back at her, looking between her and Cheese as if asking her for help. She just rests her head in her hands, having to resist the urge to scream as she hears Cariston start to stumble over his words in some sort of explanation.

“Oh, uh. Well, Cheese. You see, that, um...Elyza? Please?”

She just shakes her head, regretting ever joining that mercenary company and ever getting stuck with these absolute chaotic idiots. She listens painstakingly as Cariston tries his best to broach the subject, which Cornelia does not help at all.

“Well, you see Cheese. When a man loves a woman-”

“-Are you really going to explain this to a five-year-old boy, in the middle of the tavern?” Cornelia interrupts, her voice smooth as usual but she’s still grinning, obviously absolutely loving the whole situation.

“K-Knowledge is important. Even if that knowledge is something- something like this.” Cariston says, trying to sound proud and sure of himself, but the bright blush across his cheeks and waver in his voice does not help him at all.

“Soooo, what does it mean Cariston-”

“-Okay, no.” Elyza says, raising her voice slightly to stop Cheese in his tracks. “Cheese, we’ll tell you when you’re older.”

“But I’m older now.”

“I don't care. Come on, breakfast is done, we’re heading out now.”

Naliah snaps out of her confused state that she’s just been watching the whole exchange in, looking at her plate, that still has meat on it, with a look of distress. “But I’m not done-”

“-Nope, don't care.” Elyza says, standing up and giving Cheese a glare as everyone in the tavern, although a small number of people, are all looking over at them now. “Cheese ruined it for everyone, let’s go.”

With grumbles and protests everyone quickly finishes their drinks and food, Elyza standing by the door, arms crossed, looking annoyed as she waits for them. This is not how she wanted her day to start at all.

The group are silent as they leave the tavern, but it doesn’t last long. Cheese manages to stay quiet for all of two minutes before he starts to talk to Cariston again. Luckily, it’s about some book he was reading last night. The tension seems to dissipate little by little until everyone begins to feel at ease and not incredibly pissed off at cheese for ruining things once again. Elyza doesn’t think she’s ever met someone who expels such an unhinged energy as Cheese does.

“Hey guys?” Cheese asks loudly, grabbing everyone’s attention.

Great, here we go again.

“Do you think we should have another name for me while I look like this?” He says gesturing to his mini Cariston looking self as they walk.

“Like what?” Cariston asks.

“I don’t know, but Cheese is a weird name for a human boy, right?”

“You’re a weird kid, Cheese.” Elyza says with a shrug.

Cheese seems to actually pout for a moment, before Cariston reassures him he isn’t weird, and Cheese is a fine name. He seems to drop it, other conversations starting up before in the next lull he starts suggesting names. Elyza and Cornelia share an annoyed look, while Naliah and Cariston start suggesting names too. Most of the ones Naliah suggests are weird, and Cariston’s ones are way too proper to fit Cheese. Eventually, someone suggests the name Wensleydale, and Cheese’s little face lights up. They somehow all agree to try call Cheese by Wensleydale when they’re in public to try help him avoid people suspecting he’s a mouse. Elyza wants to point out he just looks like Cariston’s little brother or something, and no one thinks he’s a mouse. But honestly, it would be a bit hypocritical of her to think it’s stupid to go by another name to avoid drawing too much attention. 

The group's first stop of the day is the Arcane anvil once again. Their visit there isn’t that exciting due to the fact they’ve already bought most of the shop's stock in the last few days. As they enter, both Joanna and Trissaleth are at the counter. Trissaleth looks exhausted, half heartedly looking through a book, while Joanna greets them warmly, Trissaleth managing a small smile but not much else. She seems happy enough to see them yet again, even if she does not have the energy to deal with them. It’s probably because they’ve spent so much money here, but Elyza also gets the impression that she does like the group, not just as customers.

It’s nice to see Cariston and Cheese gushing over her newest creations, them both absolutely losing it when Joanna shows them some sort of book Trissaleth made that will help them get even more smart? Elyza has to admit she doesn’t really know, she wasn’t paying attention to their nerd stuff, as usual. Joanna keeps looking over as Trissaleth, asking prices as Trissaleth keeps correcting her tiredly. 

After the boys finally stop freaking out about the expensive books, Elyza steps forward to the counter to actually buy something. She spends her whole greeting with Joanna with her eyes on the arrows behind her. Trissaleth seems to notice, a small smug smile pulling at her lips as she moves from her book and lays them out on the counter without a word. Joanna does not need to try hard to sell them this time. Elyza picks them up, inspecting them before handing over her gold. Elyza sadly only has enough to buy two of the arrows, but says she’ll be back for the rest of them hopefully. 

The others have some other things they want to check out in the shop so she leaves them to it, deciding to wait outside as the temperature is a perfect blend of heat and breeze to make it a lovely pleasant day. She stands outside, leaning against the building as her mind wanders elsewhere. She’d been keeping an eye on their surroundings on the way here, keeping a look out for Alenas to see if he really has backed off. She hasn’t seen him following them as he had been, she hopes that means he’s gone for good. Sure, she wasn’t thrilled to leave her life behind in Pyke when she joined The Arcturus Company, but it really was the best thing for her, and she wants that past life to leave her the hell alone. Alenas is a reminder of the bad things she’s done. The bad things she’s still doing, but trying to stop. Being a better person is damn hard when all you know is pain and how to use that pain to hurt others. 

She’s broken out of her thoughts by the rest of the group exiting the shop, Cariston asking them if they have anything else they want to do for the day. There are a few requests of finding an alchemist and a tailor, so they make their way towards where Cornelia was sure she saw an alchemist, tentatively of course, as Cornelia’s sense of direction is horrendous.

As they’re walking, Naliah goes into her bag, walking closer to Elyza as she then holds something out to her. Elyza has to do a double take as she sees two more of those special arrows in her hand. She just looks at them, and then up to Naliah’s face feeling a bit confused on why Naliah has bought them.

“I bought them for you, since you only had enough for two. You can kill more stuff with four of them now.”

“I...that was a lot of money Naliah.” Elyza finds herself saying, honestly in complete disbelief that Naliah cares enough to spend a load of money on something for her. 

Naliah just smiles, handing the arrows over. “You’re a good shot and have our backs. I’d rather you kill things quicker so Cornelia doesn’t set us on fire trying.”

Elyza still doesn’t really know what to say. Very rarely is she left speechless by gestures, but she’s also never really had anyone be so kind to her. She’s used to doing everything on her own, having no one else to rely on. She figured out they all cared after last night with Alenas, but still she definitely is not used to this.

“Thanks, Naliah, I owe you one.”

As usual with following Cornelia’s directions, she ends up leading them to the completely wrong place. Cheese makes some backhanded comment about how bad her sense of direction is, which of course makes Cornelia say a few choice words and storm off. Elyza just watches her go, glaring at Cheese before sighing softly when he just stares back at her innocently. Cariston is the one who suggests if they all have their own things they want to do, maybe they should all just split up. Elyza reluctantly agrees, Naliah reminding her that they all have their sending stones if they really need to get in contact with each other. 

Cariston and Cheese head off to the library like the nerds they are. Naliah mentions needing to check if a cloak she’s ordered is done yet, before she dashes off too. Elyza is left standing in the middle of the trade district, not really sure what to do. She doesn’t like libraries like the boys, and she is definitely not into fashion like Cornelia and even Naliah seem to be. She’s the odd one out in the group. She tries not to let the sinking feeling in her stomach overwhelm her, but it’s hard. They’re all so magically talented with their abilities and studies. Where does she fit into that? What can she do, shoot some people?

She decides that standing in the middle of the city feeling sorry for herself is a really stupid idea. So, she does the only thing that makes sense for her to do. She surprisingly finds the alchemist that Cornelia mentioned easily. As she’s approaching Arcadia’s Cauldron, hoping Cornelia has also found her way here, she hears a loud bang from inside. She stops about ten feet away, watching the door for movement as a spike of panic stabs at her heart. She waits a minute, then another, staying still, her hand ready on her bow in case something comes out, but nothing does. She takes a deep breath, scolding herself for getting so freaked out about a loud noise. She swears she never used to be so jumpy. It must just be the whole being in a new place, and the fact they were attacked by weird demon things just yesterday.

As she enters, the first thing she notices is a grubby looking gnome woman who has a giant smile on her face. She puts two and two together pretty quickly and realises she must have done something wrong and the bang was from some sort of explosion or something. The gnome woman in question, although a little grubby from just being blown up, looks absolutely adorable. Her round face looks friendly, her eyes bright and lilac in colour. Her brown hair is tied up while she wears a flower crown with blue and pale purple flowers. She has goggles around her neck, which she was obviously wearing when the explosion happened due to the black marks on them. She Definitely ticks all of the boxes of cute and naive just from looks alone. Elyza goes to saunter over and use her usual charm, when she seems to notice for the first time Cornelia looking at her rather panicked.

The gnome woman calls Cornelia by her name, asking if she’s okay, Cornelia seems to splutter over her words, her usually cool and collected persona completely gone. Elyza can’t help but grin as she figures it all out.

Cornelia seems to have a crush on her, and it’s absolutely adorable.

“There you are Cornelia. I’ve been looking for you.” Elyza says casually, walking over to stand beside her. “Who’s your friend?”

“Oh, Hello there! My name is Arcadia. But uh, you probably already figured that out since it's on the sign outside. Uh, anyway! Cornelia here came in as I kinda sort of accidentally blew up something. But she’s so strong and caught me! I was just thanking her and offered to help her with her flower problem.”

“Her flower problem?” Elyza asks, side eyeing Cornelia with a smirk.

“Yeah, she was asking if I knew about some orange flowers she was looking for that she’s seen locally. I’ve got to say, I haven't really seen any orange flowers around here. But I, uh, I don’t really get out much sooo...” She says, trailing off with a laugh as she rubs the back of her neck.

Cornelia turns to look at Elyza with a look of pure desperation that just screams help me. Luckily, Elyza thinks this is the most exciting thing that’s happened in like the last month and decides that although Arcadia is absolutely adorable, she’s a bit too much for her taste, and she may as well help Cornelia out, since all Cornelia seems to be doing is making a fool of herself. 

“Oh yeah, I remember that now. Hey Cornelia, can I talk to you for a second?” Elyza says, already taking Cornelia by the arm and leading her away. Arcadia seems to understand their need for privacy and makes her way back around the counter to check on whatever the hell exploded. 

Cornelia seems nervous, almost panicked as she looks around the room. It’s a stark contrast to how Elyza has previously seen her over the last few weeks. Her eyes are wide as they finally meet Elyza’s once again. “Elyza, what do I do?” 

“I thought you were good at this sort of thing?” Elyza says, raising an eyebrow at her. “You seemed to handle that guard fine when we needed the distraction.” 

Cornelia just scoffs, crossing her arms “Well he was a man, they only want one thing. Give them some attention and they fall at your feet. Women though…”

Elyza smirks, leaning in slightly and lowering her voice. “Aw, have you never been with a woman before? And here I thought you were experienced.”

“What, no! I mean yes. I mean- whatever. I’m just, Ugh! can you just help me? Please?”

Elyza watches Cornelia basically pouting as she asks for help. It’s so very unlike her, but Elyza doesn’t mind the ego boast that Cornelia is turning to her for advice. It seems all her flirting she’s been doing might have actually been getting to Cornelia, or that she’s noticed it and wants to actually know how to do it. 

“You know you just have to ask her out, right? Just talk to her like a normal person.”

“I can’t just do that I-”

“-Hey, relax. You got this, okay? Just ask her if she wants to go out tonight.”

A strange expression crosses Cornelia’s face before she turns around and heads back towards the counter. Arcadia grins at her as she approaches.

“So, about those flowers-” 

“-Wouldyouliketogouttonightwithmetonightmaybeyeah’”

Arcadia just blinks at her, smile still on her face as she looks up at Cornelia, which now Elyza sees them standing closer together, she realises their height difference is kind of hilarious with Arcadia being like three foot tall, while Cornelia is over six foot. 

“What was that Cornelia? you said that a little too fast.”

“Do you maybe, I don’t know, want to go out tonight...with me?”

Arcadia’s smile falters, a small blush spreading across her cheeks as she looks a little embarrassed. “Oh. I don’t really go out much like I said. So I don’t really have anything to wear- oh but that’s not the point! I mean- um, yeah, that could be fun!”

Elyza watches Cornelia stumble her way through them making plans for her to pick Arcadia up tonight. She watches the panic on Cornelia's face when Arcadia asks what they’ll do, but to Cornelia’s merit, she doesn’t make a total fool of herself. In fact, Elyza feels somewhat proud as she watches Cornelia seem to pull herself together a bit and give Arcadia a charming smile as she says she’ll sort it all out. Arcadia in turn seems very excited, if not a bit nervous herself. As they go to leave, they both hear Arcadia bidding them goodbye, chattering nervously to herself about what is she going to wear as she goes into the back of the shop. Cornelia tries to play it cool, but fails horrifically as she finger-guns at Arcadia while walking backwards out of the door.

Cornelia walks slightly ahead of Elyza as they leave, seeming to naturally head in the direction back to the tavern. She slows slightly, letting Elyza catch up, but scowling as Elyza gives her a knowing grin. 

“Tell the others about this and I will hurt you.”

“Do you have that little faith in me?” Elyza says dramatically. Ignoring the full on glare she gets from Cornelia for her dramatism. “I think this is adorable, I’m keeping this all to myself.”

“You...You are? You’re not going to tell the others?” Cornelia asks unsurely.

“Why would I? It's your thing to tell them.” Elyza says, checking their surroundings quickly, feeling satisfied with not finding anyone following them.

“Well, thanks for helping, I guess.” Cornelia replies, still seeming a bit embarrassed by the whole situation.

“You think I got as good as I am by not doing that a few times? Sometimes a girl is just so pretty you forget how to think.” Elyza says nonchalantly with a shrug, taking a page out of Cornelia’s book.

This time Cornelia smirks, looking right into Elyza’s eyes as she speaks. “Yeah, I have seen how you are with Trizzi.”

“W-Wait, no, that’s different!” Elyza tries to say, a blush spreading across her cheeks, which just makes Cornelia’s smirk widen.

“Looks like I have something to hold over you if you do tell.”

Elyza stops, Cornelia carrying on as Elyza looks after her in disbelief. She really is such a bitch.

_________________________________________________________________________

The group spend the rest of their day apart, meeting up at the tavern that night for dinner and a ‘catch up’. It’s mostly just Cheese being his usual self, trying to make everyone flustered, while Cornelia seems to now be egging him on, which is just annoying. Elyza should be telling them to stop and to behave, but they aren’t children, she shouldn’t have to. Okay, so Cheese is technically two years old, but mice only live until they’re about three, so he’s technically older than all of them. Naliah and Cariston may only be nineteen, but Cariston has a sensible head on his shoulders, and Naliah seems a bit too oblivious to everything to cause any real trouble.

So Elyza just watches them all, Naliah keeping to herself as she eats while Cheese tries to ask about more rude words, which is making Cariston extremely flustered. He keeps looking over to Elyza for She just shakes her head at him, deciding that it is sort of fun to watch Cheese have fun with this. She’ll keep them safe and out of trouble, but she doesn’t want to be some killjoy and ruin all their fun. After all, it’s her job to make sure they don’t die, her contract says nothing about stopping them being idiots. 

With dinner finished, a few more patrons start to fill the tavern. Elyza notices it seems to be slightly busier than usual, but doesn’t think much of it. She notices as time goes on Cornelia seems to be shying away from the group, that same worried expression on her face Elyza saw earlier. Seems she’s actually nervous about her date, how cute.

“I need a bottle of wine.” She says abruptly, gathering everyone's attention on her.

“Do you have enough gold to buy one? do you need to borrow some again?” Cariston asks, already reaching for his gold pouch. Due to their arrangement, as soon as Cornelia had gotten her share of the gold, she’d immediately given it to Cariston to try to pay him back as soon as possible. He seemed a bit hesitant to take it, but did after some persistence from Cornelia. He now seems to be, in typical Cariston fashion, trying to help her out with more things she wants to buy.

“No- No I have an idea.” She says with a sly smile, standing up from the table and looking towards Cheese. “Want to help me?”

Cheese immediately perks up, the mischief practically shining in his eyes as he grins and hurries to join her as they walk towards the bar. Elyza can already see them plotting to try to steal a bottle, and decides this is the best time to head to the bathroom. Any chaos they get up to, she can deal with when she gets back.

She hangs around outside after she’s done, taking a moment for herself. She doesn’t mind being around the group most of the time. They get up to some wild things, and honestly it does feel good to have others she can rely on. But...something just seems very off with this whole situation. It may just be because for the first time in her life she feels safe with these guys, and seeing Alenas really unnerved her. Made her feel on edge, not safe at all even with the group having her back. And of course, the knowledge that he knows more than she thought, that he could have betrayed her already. 

She takes a deep breath, closing her eyes tightly as she tries to push the images that are brought to mind away. The blood pooling on the ground, the sound of her own screams ringing in her ears. She can’t go back, she just won’t, no matter what happens. She pushes off the wall, making her way back inside with the intention of having a strong drink to take her mind off of it all.

However, as she makes her way back to the group, they are definitely not how she last left them. Cornelia is squaring up to some guy, Cheese standing behind her looking confused more than anything. Cariston is standing by the table looking worried, while Naliah is still sitting at the table, drinking her drink like nothing is happening. 

Elyza sighs, making her way fully into the room and over to Cornelia. However, before she gets there, she hears Cornelia swear at the guy and punch him square in the face. The tavern seems to erupt around her into chaos, several other men rushing over to help their friend. Surprisingly, Cornelia holds her own pretty damn well, anyone coming near her getting swift elbows and punches to their faces. They recoil in pain, holding their now bloody noses and glaring at her. She seems to be in her element, telling them to come at her. Elyza thinks of joining in and using her favourite spell to help Cornelia out. But then she catches Cariston’s eye from across the room and knows he needs her help to break this up. This whole being a good person thing is definitely not fun.

She makes her way over to Cariston, having to duck a few punches as the crowd seem to have turned on each other in all of the excitement. When she gets back to the table, Naliah seems to now look excited about all this, making a comment about this making her feel like she’s back home once again. 

“Cariston, what the hell happened?” Elyza asks, grabbing his arm and moving him as a punch narrowly misses his head. He looks shaken, not knowing if to keep his eye on Cheese, who has now climbed onto a table and is cheering Cornelia on, or Cornelia who is grinning as she knocks a guy to the ground. 

“I don’t know, honestly. They were at the bar one minute, and then one of those guys started making fun of Cheese. And then, well. This.” he says gesturing tiredly to the chaos around them.

“Come on, let's sort this out.” She says, keeping a hold of his arm and basically dragging him over. He makes a noise of protest, but ultimately follows her over. Trying to stand as tall as possible as they approach. 

Elyza wonders if it’s best to try to sort this with words, but she feels everyone is way too into this to even listen. So, she does what she’s best at and rushes between Cornelia and the guy she’s currently trying to beat to a pulp. Cornelia looks surprised to see her, hesitating as she lowers the punch she was about to drive into this guy's face.

“Cornelia, stop.” She says, her eyes on Cornelia’s as she stares her down. Cornelia seems to almost growl at her in annoyance.

“They were saying bad things about Cheese. Do you expect me just to sit by and let that happen?” She says, sounding annoyed as another man comes running at her, her fist meeting his face and making him stagger back. Elyza holds her arm out between them, earning a glare from the man and his quickly forming black eye. 

“Stop this right now! I don’t care what they said to Cheese, I’m not letting you bring the rest of us down because you want some stupid fight.”

Cornelia doesn’t look convinced, not at all. In fact, she looks angrier, like she’ll happily beat all these people up if it will make her feel better. Elyza quickly figures out exactly how to stop this.

“Do you even think before you act? Keep this up and you’ll definitely get arrested. Do you think Arcadia will like you then? Yeah, great first impression, missing your date because you’d rather hurt people!”

Cornelia flinches at her words, slinking back slightly as she looks to the floor, seeming for the first time in her life to actually look a bit ashamed. Elyza hears Cariston saying something similar to try to stop the group of men that currently have them surrounded. Somehow, he seems to calm them. They collect themselves, throwing a few curses in Cornelia’s direction as they all storm out of the tavern acting like they didn’t provoke the fight at all.

With the commotion over, the patrons all seem to calm down, everyone going back to their tables. The group get a few glances as they sit down at their table, but all seems to be somewhat calm once again. Elyza makes sure everyone is okay and settled back at the table before she goes up to the bar. Naliah yet again seems completely content, not at all affected by the situation. Cheese is explaining to the rest of them how that’s the first bar fight he’s ever seen, and it was so exciting. Cariston still looks deeply uncomfortable with everything, but seems to be keeping it together for Cheese. Cornelia, who usually would be sulking, seems to actually be lost in her own thoughts, just staring at the table looking solemn. Elyza does wonder if she was too harsh, especially bringing Arcadia into it when it’s obvious Cornelia really likes her. 

She sighs, leaning against the bar to have a moment to herself while the barkeep is seeing to another customer. It was the right thing to do to break up the fight and stop Cornelia, so why does she feel so guilty? Maybe she really just needs that drink to clear her head, it’s been a really weird day after all. By the time the barkeep gets to serving her drink, she feels a little more normal, the adrenaline from everything that happened finally wearing off. 

“You’re with the group that’s from the academy, right?” the elven man who passes her her drink asks. She just nods, taking a sip and wincing slightly at how strong it is. Maybe getting the strong stuff that Naliah normally drinks was a mistake.

“Was that you guys who started that fight?”

She sighs, nodding yet again. “Kinda, yeah...sorry about that. They’re very excitable kids and-”

“-Oh no, it's fine. A fight breaks out about once a week here. I’m just glad you broke it up, and nothing got damaged.”

She smiles at him, glad he seems to be a hell of a lot more understanding than some men she’s met in taverns. They chat idly, him asking about what they’ve been up to while in Kier, suggesting a few places they haven’t explored yet. She does worry he’s trying to flirt with her with how nice he’s being, but he just seems to be a genuinely nice guy.

Elyza notices Cornelia standing up from the table out of the corner of her eye. She turns to watch them, checking she isn’t about to get into another fight. Cornelia seems to be back to her usual demeanour, announcing to the group that she has plans for the night. Cheese tries to ask about them, but she just says she has to go now. She catches Elyza’s eye and gives her a look which she knows means she’s not to tell the others. Elyza just smirks, winking at Cornelia, who in turn seems to blush and quickly turn to leave the tavern.

Elyza finishes her drink, thanking the barkeep as she goes to stand and move back to the table with her friends. It’s getting late, they should all be at least heading to their rooms soon, if not getting to sleep. Although, they don’t need to be up particularly early or anything, so it doesn’t really matter.

As she’s about to leave the bar, she remembers something and turns back to the elven man. “What’s up with the name of this place, by the way? The Absent Elf isn’t something I’ve heard before.”

The man in question just smirks, leaning on the bar towards her. “Oh, it’s named after my father who was, well, an absent figure throughout my childhood.”

Elyza can’t help but laugh with him, thanking him yet again for the drink as she makes her way back to her friends.

_________________________________________________________________________

By the next morning everyone seems to have recovered from the excitement of the previous night. Cornelia is her usual self, not letting any mention of what she got up to with Arcadia out. Although, that probably is because they’re in front of the whole group and she seems to be determined to not let them know for some reason. Elyza gets it though, especially with how they all look at her when she interacts with Trizzi, if anyone else saw Cornelia acting like that with Arcadia, they would never let her live it down. 

Their day goes as normally as it can with them running a few errands, nothing particularly exciting, just picking up a few things. Naliah’s cloak that she’s been talking excitedly about is finally ready. She has the largest grin on her face as she joins the rest of them outside of the tailors she's been visiting every day to check on it. It seems to be a blue silk cloak with platches of fur around the neck, or that’s what Elyza sees of it as Naliah very quickly holds it up showing it off. After making a huge deal of how nice it is, she slips it on, securing it and practically vibrating with excitement at it. Elyza doesn’t think she’s ever seen someone so excited over a cloak before. 

It’s late afternoon by the time they begin heading back towards the tavern. It’s a fairly quiet and peaceful walk back, shops shutting up for the day while families walk back to their homes after outings. Elyza finds herself feeling rather content and used to this place now. She was originally worried about coming to such a large city, but so far, apart from the incident with Alenas, everything has been fine. In fact, she thinks this might be the first case of her actually having some time to relax in many many years. 

Suddenly loud screams and shouts start erupting around them as people start running past them. A guard runs towards the group looking quite frankly terrified. Elyza knows they have to deal with whatever is going on by the way Cariston throws a look over his shoulder at her before rushing towards the man. He practically collapses at Cariston’s feet, looking up at him with desperation in his eyes.

“Oh please help me! There’s something terrible in the sewers, it came in the gate house and it killed my partner!”

“What was it, what’s going on?” Cariston asks the man gently, offering his hand which the guard takes, shakily standing up again.

“There were these dogs that- that teleported! Me and my partner were on guard and they came up from the sewers and killed him!”

“Okay, right. It’s okay.” Cariston says, giving the whole group a look which they all know by now means to get over here and reassure this poor guy. The thing is, no one goes to move, they all sort of just stand there looking at this guy like he’s a bit crazy. Cheese goes to move, which Elyza decides that nope, she cannot let Cheese say something weird and make this guy freak out anymore. It’s up to her.

Elyza moves to join Cariston, reassuring the guard they’ll check it out, actually motioning the group over so they have to move. Cheese, as expected, goes to say something insensitive about dogs not teleporting and he’s weird, but Elyza ushers them along quickly in the direction the guard points them in. 

It doesn’t take long before they come to the sewer gate house, which thankfully the guard had the sense to close the door as he left. If there really are some murderous beasts inside, it would be way more trouble if they got out and into the city. Naliah takes lead, her sword summoned and ready in her right hand while her left is on the door. She pushes the door open, darting in quickly expecting something to be right at the door, but it isn’t. Elyza and Cariston are next in, noticing the room has well and truly been destroyed, completely ransacked as someone must have come in to find something in here. 

That’s when they see the creatures in the room, two dogs who do not look like normal dogs at all. They have light yellow-ish brown fur and their ears are pointed back, their bodies unusually muscular and very strange. Cornelia seems to on instinct throw a bolt of fire at one of the creatures, watching it yelp and recoil. The other one growls, lunging at Naliah. She holds up her shield, bashing the creature back with a growl of her own as she brings her blade down onto it. Elyza shoots an arrow at the one Cornelia hit, watching it hit as Cheese also casts some sort of spell and frost starts to appear on the creature.

It takes about ten seconds for the creatures to die, one hitting the floor and then the other following a few seconds later as Cornelia throws more fire at them. With them dead, there isn't anything to stop them going into the sewers. They do have a quick look around the gate house before deciding there really isn’t anything of interest here and they should head into the sewers to figure out where the weird dogs came from. 

Their journey down into the sewer system doesn’t take long. In fact, within about five minutes of descending down there, they start to hear something. Cheese picks up on it first, stopping the group and asking if they hear something. Everyone stops, listening carefully. At first, it’s quiet mumblings, which suddenly erupt into loud shouts. Everyone looks confused and Elyza isn’t sure why, until she realises, she’s the only one who understands what’s being said.

“No, it’s not that way.”

“No, No I know I’m right!”

“No look, you’re holding the map upside down!”

Elyza finds herself grinning, reaching for her bow with excitement. Oh, this should be fun. The rest of the group are still all standing around trying to make out what is being said. Elyza simply walks ahead of them a little, the shouts covering up her footsteps.

“Elyza, what are you doing?” Cornelia hisses, looking frustrated that she can’t figure out what is going on or what’s being said. That just makes Elyza’s grin widen.

“Goblins, come on.”

“Wait, what, goblins? How do you know?” Cariston asks, walking with her slowly, the rest of the group now starting to follow.

“You hear that?” she says, pointing in the direction the sound is coming from. “Those are goblins, what they’re speaking is their language.”

“You speak goblin?” Cheese pipes up quietly, Elyza nods, barely glancing at him as she leads the group closer slowly. “That’s weird, why do you understand that?”

Elyza looks at him then, trying to decide if she should tell him, as she already can feel the judgment towards her radiating off of him. “I...I had a goblin cross me once. I’m really good at killing them now. What happened isn’t important.”

“I think it is.” Cheese says, furrowing his brow. “Did you kill him? Are you a goblin assassin?”

“What? No, I mean, yes, kinda. It’s...complicated. He did something, so I learned the best way to get him to- nevermind, this isn’t the time.”

“So now you don’t like them? That’s really racist Elyza-” Cheese tries to say, but Cariston tells him now isn’t really the time, and as harsh as Cariston can do anything, tells him to shut up. 

The goblins are still arguing loudly as the group approach. They have two of those same strange dogs with them who seem to not be affected by all the noise the goblins are making. Cariston and Cheese have a very quick quiet conversation that Elyza doesn’t manage to catch as they’re both taking turns to quietly whisper in each other's ears. Cariston suddenly stands up, making his way towards the goblins directly into their line of sight. The goblins definitely get a fright as one even makes a little yelp, the strange dogs stand to alert, growling as Cariston gets closer. Elyza thinks to go after him, but then stops, knowing she’ll have a better chance of hitting them if they don’t know where she is.

“Hi there, My names Cariston Vael. I couldn’t help hearing you there. I’m here with my friends. See, they’re over there.” He points back at the group. Elyza decides in that moment that maybe Cariston is not the only smart one in this group and they really are all idiots as she previously thought. “We heard a disturbance down here...Oh wait, do you understand me?”

“Of course we understand you, human.” the one with a large staff basically spits at him, now in common.

Cariston seems to ignore their tone, offering them a friendly smile. “Oh, that’s good. Why are you down here friends, what’s going on?”

The goblins exchange a look with each other, the other one replying this time.

“We don’t like this city, we’re going to destroy it.”

Cariston seems to flinch slightly, asking them why they want to destroy it. The one with the staff replies this time, sounding more annoyed if that was possible, saying that cities are bad and everyone should just return to nature, and since the idiot humans won’t listen, they need to destroy the city. Cariston of course goes to argue against this but they won’t listen to reason, insisting, which is so typical of goblins, that they’re right on this. 

Elyza listens to their argument, Cariston not getting anywhere, even when Cheese steps forward and joins in. Elyza is honestly bored of this and sees it as simple as if the goblins are dead, nothing else can happen to the city, so she might as well just stick a few arrows in them. She reaches for her bow as slowly and as quietly as possible, hoping that no one notices.

Suddenly, the goblin with the staff shouts something and slams his staff against the ground. Elyza is just pulling the string of her bow back when she feels a vine wrap around her leg, she looks down, trying to immediately step away but it holds tight, another wrapping around her other leg. She goes to shout out to the others but notices the vines are trying to wrap around them all. She looks back to the goblins in panic, feeling a vine wrap painfully around her arm.

Naliah manages to dodge out of the vines and immediately runs at the goblins, summoning her sword to her hand and slashing at the one with the staff. Cornelia manages to get out of the way as well, flames instantly erupting around her as she glares at the goblins. Cariston and Cheese seem to be in a similar situation to Elyza, the vines trapping them, restricting their movement. 

Elyza struggles against the vines, feeling panic rise in her chest as she looks around the rest of her group, seeing them also struggle against their restraints. Naliah has both the goblins on her, while the two dogs seem to be at Cornelia, who yet again seems to be holding her own very well throwing fire at anything that gets close to her. 

Cariston manages to get free and so does Cheese, them both jumping into action and casting spells. Cheese casts his go to spell, a small puddle of grease appearing below the goblins, but sadly they don’t fall. Elyza gives up on struggling, deciding she can still fire her bow like this. It’s definitely more difficult, but she can probably still hit them. She lets an arrow loose, hitting the other goblin who seems to currently be hitting Naliah with a sword. It seems to freeze for a moment, before dropping to the floor. 

Naliah catches Elyza’s eye briefly, giving her a look of determination as she turns to the other one again, slashing through its middle. Elyza expects to see a large splatter of blood from that, in fact she knows there should be, yet there isn’t. Only a small splattering of blood hits the floor. When Naliah raises the blade up again to attack, it seems to be completely clean. Elyza shakes her head, concentrating on the dogs at Cornelia and trying not to read too much into it.

The dogs, like the others from before, die very easily. The goblin with the staff however seems to take longer. Elyza misses a few shots, cursing to herself. She closes her eyes, trying to concentrate and ignore the pain in her arms from the vines still wrapped tightly around them. She opens her eyes and loses another arrow, watching it sink into the goblin. He winces but stays up, well that is until Cariston does something to him and blood starts dripping from his ears before he finally falls to the ground with a thud. 

Everyone seems to collectively sigh in relief as the vines start to shrivel and fall away. Cariston is about to start making his rounds to make sure everyone is okay, when they hear a strange noise which sounds like...bubbling? Elyza looks towards the grate in the middle of the room and watches in absolute horror as water starts to rise out of it, forming into a huge creature.

Cariston lightly touches Elyza’s shoulder, giving her a look before pointing out the creature to the rest of them.

“What the fuck is that?!” Cornelia shouts, already summoning fire to her hand with an uncharacteristic look of fear in her eyes.

“More to kill I guess!” Elyza shouts back as the creature lets out the gurgling roar. She aims her bow at the horrifying liquid creature, watching her friends get ready to fight once again.

________________________________________________________________________

“They’re going to drown, do something!” Naliah screams as she slashes into the creature, only hitting its ankles but still doing a decent amount of damage if the monster's screams are anything to go by. Elyza watches, fear gripping her chest tightly, as Cornelia and Cariston are still stuck inside the water creature's middle. It seemed to swallow them no less than a minute ago, but with how much they’re being battered about, Cariston already seems to be unconscious, and Cornelia seems to be close to it too. 

Cheese scrambles to get the hat off of his head, it’s completely drenched as they all are thanks to this creature. He closes his eyes, opening them with the panic evident in them as he looks at the water monster. “Give me back my friends!” he shouts, holding out his hand the water starts to part and Cornelia and Cariston fall to the floor. Cheese looks relieved, but it's short lived as the creature screams and goes to reach for Cariston again.

Naliah gets there first, slashing through its hand with a guttural harsh shout in another language, by the sounds of it, the same one Elyza has heard her say a few things in now. The monster gives one last gurgling scream as it crumples to the floor, bursting into water and splashing the whole group as it seems to shrink and shrink until the water is running back into the grate again. 

Elyza holds up her bow, aiming at the grate, then around the room, breathing harshly as she tries to calm herself down. A moment passes, and then another. No creature seems to get back up again, they’ve finally killed it. Elyza finds herself letting out a small laugh, looking at Cheese as she sees he has a similar smile on his face. They’re both glad it’s over.

“Elyza?” Cornelia calls out weakly, holding a wound on her side as she looks over at her and Cheese. “Cariston needs help.” Elyza nods, hurrying over to their cleric and kneeling down beside him. She watches his chest rise and fall, a wave of relief washing over her as she goes to press her hands to his chest and heal him. But then she stops, the light glowing faintly on her hands in the darkened room makes her whole throat feel like it’s closed up and she can’t breathe. 

His voice telling her she’s useless. The blood pooling on the floor beneath her. The light of her healing spell glowing faintly in the dark room. She failed; it was all her fault. 

She tries to push past it, swallow down the memories as she closes her eyes and focuses on healing her friend. She feels tears stinging her closed eyes as she pushes down harder, trying not to let the sob she feels in her throat escape. She will not cry in front of them. She needs to be strong for them, she needs to lead by example. She needs-

-Cariston gasps, coughing a little as he sits up, forcing Elyza back. He takes a few breaths, looking around at them and smiling a dazed little smile. “That was way worse than swimming at the beach, I would not recommend it.” His voice and humour bring her back slightly, her hands still shaking as she clasps them together, smiling at him even as a tear slips down her cheek. As before when she’s healed him, he gives her a strange look, but doesn’t question it as the rest of the group help him up and ask how he is. He’s barely able to stand himself but he starts helping everyone, healing them up to the best of his ability.

They slowly make their way back to the surface, Cornelia leaning on the wall for support as she insists that she’s fine. They’re all completely drenched and definitely ready to get back to the tavern. It’s only been about half an hour since they’d first gone in the sewers if that, but it feels like hours have passed. Nearly having something kill you will do that. As they leave the gate house, there are a bunch of guards waiting nervously for them. Upon seeing them, they all look very surprised.

“You’re all alive!” one of them says, Elyza recognising him as the one they originally saw.

“Just about, yeah.” Cornelia says. Even when beaten and bloody she’s still a sarcastic asshole. 

“We thought you would have died, he told us there were terrible magic beasts.”

“Yeah there was. There were also goblins, and what I believe was a water elemental.” Cariston says, going on to explain what happened first with the dogs and how they seemed to ‘blink’ and be in a different space. Then with the goblins and their sword attacks and weird nature spells. Then what happened with that horrifying creature which nearly killed them all. 

“That’s- wow, yeah that’s a lot. Are you guys okay?”

“Do I look like I’m okay!?” Naliah shouts, the guard looking very taken aback. “I just bought this cloak! It’s a silk cloak, do you know what water does to a silk cloak!?!” Naliah screams, storming off in the direction of the tavern while the whole group just look after her. Elyza does not know what water does to a silk cloak, but she has a feeling she’s going to find out.

The guards say they’ll need to report this to their captain and thank the group for helping keep the city safe, they had no idea there was something so dangerous in the sewers. With the guards gone, and everyone wet, tired, and hungry, they head back to the tavern. The first thing they all do is go to their rooms to get changed. Elyza would flirt with Cornelia and make her flustered, but honestly, she doesn’t have the energy. She still feels a bit weird, her head throbbing slightly from earlier. 

Cornelia gives her a small smile as they both leave their room, meeting Cariston and Cheese who similarly look a lot happier now they’re not completely soaked. They all go to head downstairs, but Elyza stops, telling them she’ll be there in a minute. She knocks on Naliah’s door softly, calling her name. Naliah doesn’t reply, but Elyza does hear a small snoring sound from within. She’s happy enough with knowing that Naliah’s asleep and heads downstairs to let the others know.

They have a quick and quiet dinner, discussing the fight a little bit but no one seems to have the energy to really talk about anything in depth. After dinner they’re in slightly better spirits but still exhausted. Elyza finds comfort in drink, nothing too strong like last time, just a simple ale to ease her mind. Cariston seems to be keeping an eye on her, his gaze flickering to her every so often while he chats with Cheese and Cornelia. Elyza stays out of the conversation, preferring to drink and think on things.

One by one everyone heads to bed, until Elyza and Cariston are the only two who are left downstairs. Elyza hasn’t had a lot to drink, she’s not drunk by any means, but she feels a little numb, in a good way. She feels more relaxed, yet her anxious thoughts still seem to be cutting through the fog in her mind. She sighs loudly, grabbing Cariston’s attention once again.

“Are you okay?” He asks softly, shuffling slightly closer to her. 

“Yeah, Yeah. I’m alright.” She answers automatically, stopping for a moment to think. Is she actually okay? She doesn’t like to bring up her past in any sort of way. She doesn’t like when people look at her with pity. She knows she shouldn't feel like this and she should be fine sharing what’s on her mind with Cariston because he’s...well he’s her friend. They’re all her friends, they put their lives on the line to protect her in and out of combat. She can trust him, in fact, she finds herself wanting to tell him.

“Actually, I...can we talk?”

He nods, looking into her eyes with a look of concern painted across his face. It’s so sweet how caring he is.

“I, uh. I don’t know how to say this.” She starts, suddenly feeling that dread in her stomach return again as it catches up to her what she’s about to do. “I’m sure you’ve noticed when I've healed others, that I don’t look...comfortable.” He nods, his eyes not leaving hers. She finds the words harder to say with him looking at her like that. “I don’t feel comfortable healing others. I- I’m scared I’ll do it wrong, or it won’t work. I get really-I don’t know. I don’t like it.”

Cariston just watches her, considering what she’s said before he speaks up. “Do it wrong how? Has something happened before?”

“No- Well, I-” She sighs, closing her eyes tight as she looks down at the table, his eyes feeling like they’re burning into hers. He’s too nice and caring, way too good to care about someone like her. When she looks up and catches his eye again, he looks worried.

“Something happened, once. I-I wasn’t able to use my magic properly yet. I don’t like to use my healing magic on others unless absolutely necessary.”

“...Do you want to talk about it?” he asks gently, each word said with such care not to pry open the obviously painful memories she’s trying hard to not let overwhelm her. 

“No- no, thank you. I’m good. I just- Can you make sure you do most of the healing, I’ll help out if I need to but I- I would rather I didn’t have to.”

“Yeah. Yeah, of course.” He says, flashing her a warm smile now. “You know, I’m here if you need to talk about anything. That’s what friends are for.”

She should feel worried that he’s willing to be there for her, that she’s putting them all in danger just by being in association with her. Yet for once, she feels calm, she feels happy. She has people she can rely on, and that’s incredible. She finds herself smiling softly back at him. “Thanks Cariston.”

They both head off to bed for the night shortly after, Cariston stopping her before she goes into her room to remind her that he’s here if she needs to talk. She thanks him again, a genuine smile on her face as she makes her way into the room. As she lies in bed, thinking on how she could have died today, she wonders what adventures tomorrow will bring. Just for once, she wants tomorrow to be a nice, calm, normal day.


End file.
